Lightning Crashes
by Ihsan997
Summary: Retired from adventuring, Cecilia and Khujand begin the biggest step after they hung up their weapons for good: starting a family. As they discover, bringing life into the world can be much tougher than taking life out of it. Final story starring these two; 12 chapters.
1. Year 33, part 1

**A/N: hello, dear readers! Welcome to the final full length story of mine featuring my two mains, Cecilia and Khujand. Let me state up front that you do NOT need to read my other stories for this one to make sense. Of course, I'd love it if you chose to read them, but I won't force you to. Everything you need to know in terms of background information will either be contained in the narrative here or explained in the paragraph below.**

 **There are some time skips in this story: chapters 1 - 6 take place in the year 33 on the Warcraft timeline; chapters 7 and 8 take place in the year 36; chapters 9 - 11 take place in the year 39; and chapter 12 takes place in the year 51. For perspective, keep in mind that the Warlords of Draenor expansion occurred in year 31 according to most counts. Enjoy!**

Astranaar had become quite the busy city those days. Every other day, it seemed as if another one of the tall, hollowed out tree houses was being raised by the local Cenarion Circle representative, once again marking the gradual increase in night elf population after the loss of immortality. The structures were an efficient way of housing people: reaching three or four stories high, they provided a surprising amount of privacy due to the soundproof walls, and they also added other levels to the city itself: branches often grew from one tree into another, creating aerial walkways where much of the city's social life took place. Rope bridges attached other dwellings to one another, and multiple families could live inside of a single tree. Without any need to actually expand the island that the city was situated on, Astranaar's population had already tripled beyond what it had been during the Long Vigil, turning it into an urban area that rivaled many of the human and orc cities that had formed trading hubs.

While Cecilia didn't actually live in Astranaar, her biannual visits to her sister's household there were always pleasant ones. During the Vigil, the place had been one of a handful of true cities that the Sentinel faction had held, a strong contrast to the numerous small groves and hamlets that most of the night elven population inhabited. Even after their people's entrance into the Alliance (one that Cecilia was still hoping would be only temporary), the city had retained a more traditional flair not seen in a number of other settlements, right down to the very architecture that was technically in violation of Alliance safety regulations. Traditional Kaldorei rules were in effect, and even the worgen and draenei who'd made their homes there often wore night elf style civilian clothes when not adventuring.

Not that Cecilia didn't enjoy Ratchet, the goblin port city where she and her husband lived...but being a twelve thousand year old night elf who'd seen their society from the very beginning, she had a certain appreciation for her people's culture. Those trips she took there twice a year were generally the busiest and most fun of her regular vacations from work.

If only she had the energy to get up out of her chair this time.

She looked down at her belly, feeling her unborn child kick again. The duality of having been a warrior of the night for so long and then taking to the idea of being a mother so easily might appear strange to some, but to her, it was time. Immortality had ended, and night elves born before the Sundering like her had started to die of old age; her biological clock was ringing like a foghorn. As she hummed lightly to her little companion, she measured the distance from her naturally grown lawn chair to the back door of her sister's treehouse. Since the family was older and more established, her sister had her own tree entirely to herself, granting Cecilia plenty of privacy in her last month of pregnancy. But that cozy little grassy yard between the back of her house and those of the neighbors suddenly looked like an enormous, gaping valley.

"Don't worry, mama will get up and eat now," she whispered to her son who would soon come into the world.

For much of the pregnancy, her cravings had been rather mild: a simple hankering for ice cream at times, a moderate desire for pomegranates at others. Fortunately, her husband's doting and borderline clingy nature had led him to bring her whatever she wanted. Under normal circumstances, she'd refuse to be coddled in such a way - a warrior doesn't so easily allow themselves to become pampered. Under her current circumstances, however, she was more than willing to allow just a little bit of pampering when it was available.

"Up we go," Cecilia grunted as she braced herself against a large stone used as a small table in the backyard. At roughly the last week of the average length of pregnancy for a night elf, her usual fatigue had increased by leaps and bounds, and she felt as if she was carrying a mountain giant on her back. "Here we go, here we go," she repeated quietly as she just stood for a moment to keep her balance.

The feeling was uncomfortable for a former sentinel; concepts such as balance, weight and leverage were their lifeblood. When she'd retired permanently from adventuring two years ago, she'd felt no remorse when entering the civilian lifestyle. She'd retained most, though not all, of her former dexterity into retirement, and had still lived her life based on the assumption that she was an agile person in tune with her surroundings. Pregnancy changed that, and as fun as she found observing the subtle changes in her body as she brought a new life into the world, she still couldn't get used to her stunning lack of energy.

After taking the first step toward the back door of the tree house, she stopped and started measuring the distance...there were at least six more steps remaining.

"Gosh darn it," she muttered, not wanting to actually cuss when her unborn son could hear her. He wouldn't understand or remember, of course, but she just didn't feel right talking like that.

She lifted her foot, ignoring the fact that it felt like lead, and set it down in front of her. Unnoticeable to all but her, her shoulders swayed a hair's length outside of the imaginary box she always kept her ankles, knees, hips and shoulders inside of when marching. A mild sense of panic gripped her for a moment; she didn't enjoy the lack of precision in her movements at all. Taking a moment to feel steady again, she tapped into her patience and took a deep breath.

The second step felt a little more stable, but was agonizingly slow. The third step drained much of the energy she'd regained from moonbathing on the chair, and she felt a sudden drag only halfway to the back door. As if gravity itself had increased, she could feel her knees begging her to just sit down there in the grass and sleep, and her patience waned in frustration at her lack of energy. She'd slept for over fifteen hours the day prior...how could she feel drained this quickly?

 _I guess this is what it means to be twelve thousand years old_ , she joked to herself internally. Just another week or so...another week and she'd be able to hold a piece of life she'd brought into the world. She'd hold a part of herself and her husband in her arms and finally start to raise the family she'd waited for so many millennia to have.

And, hopefully, she'd stop feeling so gosh darn tired all the time.

Screw it, she'd been relatively independent for all those other months. "Khujand!" she called to her husband, breaking her own rule and asking help for what was only the fourth time during her entire pregnancy.

Though inside the house, she could easily sense him coming. Not only did his footsteps thud - he was heavyset by the standards of the Darkspear, his tribe - but her senses of hearing and smell had also amplified times one hundred. In a matter of seconds he'd emerged, pushing the tarp away to reveal his sky blue hide and scarlet mane. The color contrast somehow stood out in her vision even more when she was pregnant, pushing her near sensory overload. Thankfully, he was always so eager to spoil her that he leapt at an opportunity where she wasn't resisting it, and helped her walk the rest of the way into her sister's house without engaging in serious conversation that she didn't have the energy for.

A mixture of affection and concern washed over his face. "I finally get ta help ya again," he chuckled in his fluent if accented Darnassian.

He led her to a pile of cushions and blankets that always seemed to permanently occupy the center of her sister's house. "Only sometimes," she laughed and huffed at the same time. Suddenly, the cushions looked very inviting, and she found herself easing into a sitting position once again after only a small bit of walking. "Goddess, I haven't gone for a hike in a week," she lamented as Khujand joined her sister at the side of the circular home used as a kitchen again.

"You'll get plenty of physical activity when you travel to the birthing compound tomorrow," her sister Unelia chortled while engaging in her never ending quest to dust off everything in the house at least twice a day. "There's nothing to worry about there."

"I'm still a bit nervous about going...honey, are there any slices of pie left?"

Khujand immediately began pulling pieces of a blueberry pie out of the household's cold storage dugout. "Comin' right up!"

"Thank you so much, dear!" she chirped at him before turning back toward her sister. "But the birthing compound...I'm still nervous."

"It's fine, I swear. Elindir II was born there, and it was a wonderful experience back then," Unelia replied, referring to her second child. "They've known you'd be coming for a year, I've been writing them updates on your condition, they expect you to be there tomorrow...and once you arrive, there will likely be a volunteer right at the flight point to show you around."

"And, what..." Cecilia stopped herself before she discussed her husband in his presence.

There were numerous benefits and quirks to being in an interracial relationship; she especially hoped that the mix of cultures would enrich the lives of their children. Another potential benefit was a language barrier that could prevent the other partner from listening in on occasionally uncomfortable discussions. Unfortunately, Khujand was nearly a savant when it came to the language issue: whereas Cecilia spoke eight languages because she was twelve millennia old, Khujand simply had a knack for such skills. His Darnassian was far better than his Orcish, so there was simply no way to engage in conversation in front of him in her own language.

But she knew her husband was sensitive, and might feel bad if she openly talked about the race issue in front of him. Taking a deep breath, she reached into the back of her mind and switched her thoughts to Ursine, the language of the furbolg.

"And what about your brother in law, here?" she asked in the language of the bear people. Though his ears pricked up, he continued sifting through the drawer of napkins and plates to bring her a snack and didn't ask questions.

Being even more ancient than Cecilia herself, Unelia was able to quickly code switch to the very different language, as well as discern the reason why. "Look, they agreed to allow him inside the compound back when I first asked nearly a year ago. I'm sure there will be some complaints, just like every place he goes for the first time, unfortunately. Oh...and, uh, they mentioned that the resident druid might accompany your hubby as a 'guide.' Which I'm guessing means chaperone."

"Here you go, dear," Khujand interjected while handing Cecilia two pieces of the pie on a plate.

"Thank you so much!" she said in Darnassian as she accepted the plate and quickly inhaled the first few bites of pie.

As if he'd understood the privacy of the conversation when they'd code switched, Khujand went out the front door and walked up the ramp that led to the second floor of the treehouse. Unelia's children each had rooms up there, as well as Elindir I, the uncle of both sisters. At fourteen thousand years old, he was one of the oldest living night elves; his advice was widely sought after by younger druids, but his health had also started to fail, as was the case with many of his generation.

Pushing her worries about their uncle from her head and resigning herself to accepting the fact that he was at least surrounded by a caring family, Cecilia tried to focus on her more immediate issue - the birthing compound she and her husband would be flying to tomorrow.

"So basically they want to have someone follow Khuj around in case he's actually a Horde spy? That really doesn't sound like Raene at all," Cecilia said in regard to the founder of the birthing compound, a certain local notable by the name of Raene Wolfrunner.

"No, I don't think that's it," Unelia retorted. "I spoke to Raene about it about to months ago."

Cecilia stopped wolfing down the pie briefly enough to raise one of her long, gradually greying eyebrows that she dyed azure. "Face to face? You didn't mention that at all."

"I know, and I meant to, but honestly the house has been so busy ever since you guys arrived that I haven't been able to actually sit down with you."

"So what did she say?"

"Basically, the comfort and calmness of the mommies if the most important thing there. I remember when I went there for Elindir II's birth; everything was so tranquil. That was really the best part."

Cecilia frowned. "I know that politics have caused problems, but is our society so two faced that they can accept joining all the Light worshippers in the Alliance and even letting death knights reside in our lands, but a member of the most civilized of all troll tribes will upset the families?" she asked sincerely, her disappointment in her voice apparent even to her own ears.

"No, listen. It's not like that. Raene agreed to allow Khuj to stay like any other daddy, remember? She seemed reserved about it when I spoke to her, but she absolutely wouldn't ever refuse. So I don't think she's worried about Khuj herself; she just knows that some of the new mothers might get their protective instincts triggered tenfold and become stressed at the sight of someone they associate with a general stereotype. It's Raene's job to ensure that the mothers are informed of their new stage in life, not to educate all of them on racial tolerance. And even if she made the latter her job, I really don't think that she could."

Sighing deeply, Cecilia simply didn't have the energy to delve into philosophical arguments. "I guess I can see the logic behind her decision...I'm just disappointed that Kaldorei can accept the fact that the Shadowtooth, one of the most primitive tribes of dark trolls, pledged allegiance to the Sentinel banner but then bristle at a member of the Darkspear, a jungle troll tribe widely represented in the Cenarion Circle." Finishing off the last piece of her pie after just a few minutes, she spoke with a bit of the crust still in her mouth. "It's such a blatant contradiction."

"All societies are full of contradictions. In fact, that's really what a society is: a series of organized contradictions. Just look at how popular opinion on allowing the highborne reentry into our cities changes at least twice a year."

"Yeah...I suppose so..."

Unelia finished her feather dusting, and the two of them sat on the cushions in the center of the room for a few minutes while Cecilia picked at pie crumbs. A sort of comfortable silence settled in between the two of them, a microcosm of the taxing month they'd both shared after Cecilia and Khujand both took forty days vacation from their jobs back in Ratchet in order to spend the last month of her pregnancy at Unelia's household. Ever the diligent host, the older sister had exhausted herself while essentially caring for both their uncle and Cecilia herself, while Cecilia simply felt exhausted all the time from pregnancy. Being even older, Unelia herself had faced late life pregnancy, and knew how physically tiring the experience could be. Their husbands did their best, of course, always playing with Unelia's two children and keeping the sister and brother duo occupied so that both sisters could actually review the birthing books Raene had sent to them.

But it was still a tiring trip, as had been the entire year, comparatively speaking. Cecilia wanted a family so bad...to raise children was the crowning achievement of her twelve millennia. That didn't meant, however, that she couldn't admit to feeling a bit of fatigue, or lean on her husband a bit toward the end.

Footsteps from upstairs broke her out from what she realized had been an impromptu nap. Two pairs of feet vibrated on the ramp that wound its way around the treehouse's trunk, one of them the familiar heaviness of her husband and the other one entirely unfamiliar. The fact that such a familiar face went along with such an unfamiliar gait was unsettling, and an aching reminder of how little time the night elves of her generation had left.

Uncle Elindir, the first Elindir, was heard before he was seen. "I have a feeling that the blueberry pie is all gone," the jolly old druid chortled as he poked his head inside of the tarp covering the front door.

"Good evening, uncle Eli; I was wondering where you were!" Cecilia exclaimed, watching her reflection in the black sunglasses he wore everywhere.

Khujand didn't even bother poking his own head inside, and the fact that Elindir I was holding his white cane signaled that the two of them were likely going to follow Unelia's husband and children to the library, where they'd departed to less than an hour ago. The cane's red tip only added to the reminder of dwindling time, even as the druid's indigo hair - the natural color of the family, unlike Cecilia's azure dye - still looked silky and youthful.

"Oh, I've been moving about. There's always so much to be done...ack..."

Her uncle then proceeded to hack deeply in his throat, nearly choking as he cleared it out. He bristled as if the act had caused him physical pain, which caused Cecilia to grimace. Since he couldn't see her do so, she had largely lost her normal elven restraint when around him, and Unelia winced at Cecilia grimacing at Elindir I bristling.

"Uncle, please chew on the herbs!" Unelia said, referring to a treatment the man had often dispensed to locals for throat problems yet rarely ever took himself despite his failing health.

"Yes, of course, dears," he relied while walking straight into the house and the kitchen without feeling his way around. In a matter of seconds, he'd reached for the correct drawer, found the correct herbal concoction and began chewing on it, leaving the front door again unassisted. "We shouldn't be out that long," he said as he left.

"We'll need to start preparing lunch before midnight; you're going to love it tonight!" Unelia called after him as his unassisted footsteps thumped on the stairs leading down from the front porch.

"Everybody loves eatin' here!" Khujand called back toward the house. By the sound of his voice, the two of them were already a good distance away and soon enough they disappeared from earshot.

Drowsiness poked at Cecilia again, amazing her by how much she always felt like sleeping. Though the books that Raene had sent to her mentioned how tired she'd be - especially when pregnant in an advanced age - to actually experience the fatigue was quite the ordeal. Before she could drift off again, her sister's voice grounded her.

"Uncle is getting worse," Unelia remarked, her voice low and a bit melancholy, which was unusual for the Sisterhood of Elune volunteer who was almost always either upbeat and cheery or simply subdued and reserved.

Snapping right awake at the mention of a sensitive subject, Cecilia sighed and opened her eyes. "He goes through cycles; that's just how life functions," she replied, though more to herself than her sister.

"I hope you're right..."

"Well, I'm right that life functions in cycles," Cecilia chortled, finding the sheer power of will to smile when such an uncomfortable subject was brought up. "Uni, I'm supposed to give birth within a week up to another week beyond that, possibly."

Immediately understanding, Unelia looked a bit contrite. "Yes, there are more imminent issues to worry about, I suppose." She reached over to give her sister's hand a squeeze. "You're going to do great. The birthing compound is a safe and amazing place; you'll see."

"I hope you're right," Cecilia replied in good humor, mimicking her sister's lighter voice as she repeated the line.

The last thing she could remember before nodding off to sleep again was the sensation of her son kicking inside of her belly.


	2. Year 33, part 2

For Khujand, the entire half hour flight had been harrowing. Every few seconds he felt his mane rise on the back of his neck, and a few minor heart attacks nearly occurred. No matter how closely his rented hippogriff flew to the hippogriff of his wife - too close for proper flight safety, no doubt - he still couldn't relax knowing that she was likely just a few days from delivery. Books they'd received from the founder of the birthing compound had explained that Cecilia could technically remain physically active even to the day of actual birth, and logic dictated that what was written in the books sent by an expert was probably correct. Psychologically, however, his nerves were still shot as he watched her balance on the flying animal.

The route to the birthing compound was well worn, at least. Accessible only by air, the location was in a part of the Ashenvale Forest that was remote even by the standards of a people who mostly lives in small glades and groves of only a few dozen people each. Yet despite the total lack of roads through the impenetrable woodlands below, the air route was well worn. More than a few families clutching infants flew by, totally unfazed by the fact that they were flying with newborn babies in their arms. A faerie dragon carrying a mail bag sailed past them as well, heading toward the compound at a much higher speed. By all measures, it was an easy, comfortable ride, and not once did Cecilia appear to be in discomfort.

Much of her pregnancy had gone like that, however: she was always calm and in control despite her fatigue, and he was always stressed and paranoid about how many hundreds of different ways she could fall, slide or otherwise get hurt. And no matter how many times she reminded him that she'd survived for twelve millennia until then, he just couldn't shake his sense of worry.

What did eventually shake it, however, was the first signs of the birthing compound.

"Honey, look!" Cecilia shouted across the wind while trying to stand up on the hippogriff's back. He'd seen her do so numerous times, but another minor heart attack almost occurred at the sight of it.

"Cici, be careful! Please sit down!" he replied before finally taking a look at what she was pointing to. "Loa..."

Not that the place was absolutely huge, but it was just so...complete. From about half a mile away and maybe a hundred feet off the ground, they had an incredible view. The ancient protectors grew even more densely together to form a near impenetrable series of rings around the almost boxy shape of the compound grounds. Numerous little roads wound around, lined by relatively small huts that numbered over a hundred. Though those roads were relatively empty, the starlit lanterns on the porches of a majority of the huts implied that the compound was relatively full. Every few huts, there occurred a larger building; individuals carried loads of laundry to and from some, while new or expecting mothers walked out of others carrying wet towels and bathrobes.

Most impressive to Khujand were the shrines, however. At the end of every road laid small reflection shrines full of glistening water and wisps floating around. Were the compound engineered by goblins or gnomes, it would have been terribly expensive to maintain; being under the auspices of a certain semi retired huntress Cecilia's age named Raene Wolfrunner, however, the compound was naturally grown from the planet and likely survived on a small amount of donations for volunteers and linens. All of those shrines shone like stars, and people came and went to say a few prayers or simply rest as they pleased save a single isolated shrine up a little path that led away from the compound proper. Before Khujand could take a good look at it, Cecilia drew his attention to more immediate matters.

"Dear, I think we have a problem!" she shouted while trying to draw his attention toward the destination to which their hippogriffs were flying.

"What is...oh."

The front of the compound seemed rather standard for a remote outpost: the hippogriff roost was right next to the flight point, and across from it was a tree of life with a ramp winding up its four stories. The eyes of the tree watched the two of them approach, the not quite sentient dwelling's attention focused on them. What was more interesting than what appeared to the the administrative center, however, was the huntress lodge and the handful of stationed sentinels who filed out of it and stared Khujand down aggressively.

"We told them!" Cecilia yelled across the wind in irritation as the hippogriffs approached the flight deck as if nothing was amiss. "They knew we were coming!"

Though Khujand was about to suggest that they'd forgotten, he realized that his attempt to assume the best didn't make much sense and held onto that thought. This wasn't anything new to him: whenever he traveled to new night elven towns, he had to go through the explanation that he wasn't a member of the Horde, that he'd been granted quarter in Ashenvale by Keeper Ordanus, that the Cenarion Circle and Earthen Ring requested that he be allowed to pass freely in the region, and so on, and so on. Even when the sentinels pulled out the nets, he felt more mental fatigue than fear, seeing as how he'd been detained at night elven towns previously and things always turned out alright in the end. For this to occur at the place where their son would hopefully be born, however, was tiring.

Before the hippogriff's hooves and paws had even touched down on the flight deck, the sentinels had already ensnared both the animal and Khujand himself in three separate nets (as if one wasn't enough). The creature screeched, but he just stroked it's down behind its ears with one hand and held his other up in surrender.

"Sister, back away from the trespasser!" one of the sentinels bellowed at Cecilia while notching an arrow in Khujand's direction.

The flight mistress literally hit the deck as Cecilia thumped off of her hippogriff with amazing balance considering all the changes to her body. Shaking the wooden surface of the little platform, she marched over toward the three sentinels without fear, continuing to march until the one who'd ordered her away began to back up.

"Sister, stay-"

"One more syllable and I'll stick that arrow in your right ear until it breaks through your left!" she growled as she stood in between all three sentinels and Khujand.

Another sentinel noticed a volunteer leading a treant sprouting more apples than leaves past the flight point. When both the elf and the tree person looked perturbed and began walking away even faster, the second sentinel tried to intervene.

"I'm sorry, big sister, but we have to frisk-"

At that, Cecilia shocked them beyond all hell by grabbing the arrow notched in the other woman's bow and snapping it between her fingers. Even Khujand was surprised; night elves were some of the most orderly people on Azeroth, rarely ever defying their authorities or abusing said authority. Consequently, punishments for such infractions were heavy, almost like those of the tauren. For Cecilia to not even show defiance but also physically break a sentinel's weapon was rather audacious.

For a twelve thousand year old veteran of the sentinel's full of righteous anger, it was only the tip of the iceberg. He began to grow anxious beneath the net at what his wife might do.

"The sharp end is going in a much worse place for _you_ if you don't back up three steps _right now_."

Her weapon damaged, the second sentinel lowered her bow in order to preserve her dignity, but didn't back up a quickly as the other two. Just as she opened up her mouth to reply, a more relaxed - though not softer - voice prevailed from just behind them.

"Better do what she says...I'd rather not tend to any more wounds today."

All eyes turned to the speaker, a woman who was obviously older by the more methodical, fluid movement of her strides. Two younger attendants flanked her, but the speaker - a woman dressed in hiking leathers whose hair appeared either purple or blue depending on how the moonlight shone on it - held such a commanding presence that Khujand barely even noticed them. Guessing who she was proved to be an exceedingly easy task.

The second sentinel appeared as about as upset as one of the stoic warriors of the night could be. "This person has caused damage to one of my arrows while I was performing my job! This is a flagrant offense!" the woman protested, though her two colleagues looked at her as if she was causing an offense at that point.

Ignoring the woman's protest entirely, the person who could be none other than Raene glanced at Khujand through the holes of the net once before turning toward Cecilia. "Please excuse them, sister Hearthglen; the government provides whatever security for it that it can on a rotational basis. Our colleagues here arrived just a few days ago, and I was on a hunting trip at the time; they are unaware of your arrival and the situation of your...partner."

Mood fluctuating quickly, Cecilia became visibly relaxed. "That explains the treatment of my mate, in that case," she replied, much to the surprise of two of the three sentinels. Khujand felt a bit relieved when the last one didn't react as if interracial pairing was strange.

The second sentinel didn't want to let the matter go at first. "Sister Wolfrunner, my arrow has been broken!" she muttered, though the sound of defeat in her voice was clear.

As in control of herself as any other person of the older generation, Raene barely even reacted despite the irritation that Khujand's voodoo could pick up from her. "The compound has no trouble funding such repairs," she snarked (which Khujand insisted was a verb no matter what anybody said) at the sentinel while flipping a single copper coin at the woman with her thumb. "Please, remove the net from the...new dad," she ordered all three sentinels.

Holding still so as not to cause any more misunderstandings, Khujand just held his arms out as the sentinels untangled him and the hippogriff. The flight mistress had already dusted herself off and led Cecilia's hippogriff to roost as the two older women spoke. Falling into a role that Cecilia usually filled herself for those around her, Raene counseled her as the sentinels got to work.

"As you can see, the governor of Astranaar has been kind enough to provide us with a retinue of sentinels from her garrison. The ancients surrounding this place would never allow intruders to pass, but you know as I do that our fine warriors take preservation of our people very seriously."

"I hope they understand the need of my mate to be here for the birth of our first child," Cecilia replied, obviously working hard to control her tone.

"Absolutely, and I can assure you that as long as any guest in the compound follows the rules, they are more than welcome here. And in just a moment when the mister Hearthglen here is...eh, functional again, we'll review with you both the general system we have going here. Sisters?"

"Finished," the second sentinel mumbled in reply as the three of them re folded their nets into a form that would allow for quick and easy redeployment when the time came.

Free again, Khujand dismounted and allowed the flight mistress to lead his hippogriff away, noticing how the woman didn't look him in the eye when she accepted the creature's reins. Knowing not to push his luck, he resigned himself to listening and little else after greeting their hosts no care providers.

"Thank ya so much, miss Wolfrunner. Ya really are providin' such a great service ta tha world here."

At first, Raene looked a little surprised at the way he spoke, probably due to his relative ease when using their language. Her expression quickly evened out, however, and she gave him a polite nod and little else before motioning for them to walk down one of the small roads lining the entire compound.

"If you'll just come this way, sister Hearthglen. Your sister Unelia made all the arrangements prior to your arrival, so we have hut number forty three stocked with sufficient sheets and other supplies. From what I remember, you're in your fifty second week of pregnancy, correct?"

"Yes; we're very close to the one year mark," Cecilia replied as the group of five passed various other huts that were marked with numbers and either starlit or unstarlit lanterns hanging from the porch awnings.

"Great; you're very close then. As I wrote to you, we generally encourage mothers to remain here for a few days after birth just to run checkups on the newborns, but otherwise we always encourage physical activity and a return to normal life as soon as is reasonably possible."

"Of course; the longer someone remains inactive, the harder it will be when they try to be active again."

"Good, you've been reading," Raene said, smiling ever so slightly.

"Every last word of the titles you mailed to me," Cecilia replied with an even wider smile.

The road was noticeably empty as the five strolled, with only a few volunteers carrying baskets of laundry to and fro. One pregnant mother to be passed them going in the opposite direction, giving Khujand and then Cecilia a funny look before continuing on her way.

Eventually they all reached the hut marked number forty three. Naturally grown, the one room dwelling bore the arches and the combination of wood and stone common in Kaldorei architecture, though the colors were a bit darker to match the woodlands surrounding the compound. One of the two attendants next to Raene continued walking down the road without them, though Khujand's attention was focused on the hut next door. Leaning on the railing was a haggard looking woman in a bathrobe, her fingers curled up as if holding a non existent cigarette. Glancing at the group without a hint of shock or prejudice, she almost appeared to be in a daze. Inside the hut behind her, a child whined, waking Khujand up to something he absolutely _was not_ prepared for.

Prior to his marriage to Cecilia, he'd been pushed into an arranged marriage as a youth. That had resulted in two children that, for complicated reasons, he would never be able to see again, though that sat easier with them knowing that their stepfather was also a good, caring man. Still, Khujand remembered very well what it felt like the day he held his daughter from his previous marriage in his hands. He'd cried at that time, and while he was able to control himself this time, the sound of the baby girl crying next door caused his core muscles to tighten as if stifling a whimper. The sudden urge to run inside of their own assigned hut and cover his ears hit him hard, and he audibly sucked in a deep breath and let it out in order to keep himself balanced.

Though the remaining attendant jumped at the sound of his rumbling lungs, Raene didn't react. "And here we are," she said as they all squeezed into the hut.

"Oh, Raene, I can't believe you've provided all this for the community!" Cecilia half beamed and half panted, clearly impressed by the quality of the small dwelling.

Though the hut only had one room, it was far cozier than even the overpriced Ratchet infirmary. A simple mattress covered in clean sheets sat at the opposite end from the door, right next to a pile of more linens next to it. A few drawers and shelves grew out from one wall, and an empty space in the center of the room prevented the interior from feeling cramped. Khujand set their luggage down in an empty alcove opposite the shelves, and turned around to notice that the other attendant had left.

Raene was polite enough, but didn't speak to him directly as she addressed mainly Cecilia.

"Now, sister Hearthglen, Unelia told me you're originally from Raynewood province...but you passed through the bramble patches due east of Astranaar, didn't you?"

Grinning wide in the way she sometimes did when successfully recalling a memory from her vast past, Cecilia sat down on a bench against one wall and gained a wistful look. "Yes, my hair color was the same as my blood sister's back then. I remember seeing you, Raene."

"Well, it's been a while, so I wanted to be sure. But I believe I released more than one of my nightsabres as your mount over the millennia."

"I understand; everybody who patrolled that area would need to see you in order to gain a mount. I also received one from you at Raynewood Tower, if you remember. It was maybe halfway between the Satyr War and Silithus."

For a moment, Raene actually looked shocked for once. "Oh my...I barely even remember that. I don't believe I was stationed there for more than a few decades...that's an excellent memory you have," she nearly chucked.

As if noticing that Khujand had little to add to the conversation, Cecilia reached out and held him by the wrist. "Raene, are there any parts of the compound that are restricted? I think my hubby might want to go for a walk while we reminisce."

Though her very faint smile never left her, Khujand did sense a measure of reservation from the compound's founder. "Privacy and comfort for the mothers here is paramount, so the most important thing is to give them there space and not appear to be...following anybody." Her head shifting between both wife and husband, Raene appeared unsure of whom to address. "Ardoren, our resident druid, should be arriving shortly. He can show your mate around. Think of him as a...personal guide. He's volunteered to accompany mister Hearthglen at all times."

The chaperone issue had been one that had bothered Cecilia a tad bit in the week before their arrival. Khujand knew that his wife wished for their relationship to be accepted as nothing amazing or different, to the point where as someone who was ancient and a product of their societies traditions, she was mildly rebellious. Not wanting her to become unhappy in his part, he gladly accepted what she'd felt was a restriction as a sort of gift from the compound.

"That's very generous of ya, miss Wolfrunner. I'll step outside and wait for him ta come."

Cecilia looked up at him, not entirely pleased by the situation but much calmer than he'd sensed her as being before. "I'll be right here, honey. Take your time to observe the place...I'd like to go for another walk with you after I get another nap."

"Absolutely," he chortled while stepping outside into the mostly empty road again.

He found the surroundings a bit odd; were the compound full of jungle trolls, the roads would be bustling and full of fathers trying to avoid changing diapers or simply terrified of the prospect of the process of birth in general. Had he really become that domesticated by marrying an elf?

Since the druid chaperoning him was nowhere to be seen, he turned around to survey more of the area, only to be met with a shoe to his face.

"Monster!" a shrill voice shrieked as the leather article of footwear smacked him right on the cheek.

"What tha hell!" he grumbled while shaking his head and looking for his assailant. Raene had already walked out to the porch, as had two fathers from huts across the road.

A diminutive volunteer wearing a dress was reaching for her other shoe, fumbling a basket full of onesies in the process. There was an expression of anger on her face as if she was actually going to slay a potential intruder with her shoes, and Khujand just stood there confused yet prepared to catch it if she really did try to throw it at him again.

"Lurella, that's the father of the expected child in hut forty three!" Raene scolded the younger night elf.

Fumbling her shoe as she gaped, the woman named Lurella experienced a measure of difficulty catching her balance again. "Wha...father?!" she asked incredulously.

"What's going on?" Cecilia asked from inside the hut.

Speaking in a voice loud enough for the younger woman to hear, Raene answered in what seemed like an attempt to make some sort of a point to Lurella. "One of our volunteers though we were being invaded and decided to defend us with her shoes," she replied.

Slightly embarrassed, Lurella snatched up her basket and stood with her head down for a moment. "I didn't know the Horde was delivering courses on our language," she muttered, as if refusing to believe that Khujand wasn't some sort of a spy.

"They aren't, and he isn't a member of the Horde. Lurella, please apologize to mister Hearthglen. Mister Hearthglen, please give her back her shoe."

More amused than upset, Khujand picked up Lurella's shoe and offered it to her first. When she reached out to take it, he refused to let go. "Sorry," she said insincerely after a few seconds.

"Elune bless you," he replied, though invoking the name of the goddess appeared to bother her even more, and she quickly turned away from him to look up at Raene.

"I'm just taking these to the laundry station," she said as she started to walk away. When Raene didn't answer at first, Lurella froze.

"As you were," the compound founder finally said after a few seconds, trying to drive home a point. She watched Lurella hurry away before turning back to Khujand. "Once Ardoren arrives, such incidents will not occur," she said, speaking to him directly for the first time.

"Yeah...thanks again, miss Wolfrunner," he replied jovially.

Raene took her leave, and Khujand found himself alone on the road once the two fathers across the road decided the situation was secure enough for them to return to their families. A flash of green caught his eye, and he realized that the mother next door to them had been watching the entire incident. Her eyes still bore a faraway look in them, though that also made her the person at the compound who, so far, behaved the most normally around Khujand.

"Ishnu alah," he told her, his accent strong but his pronunciation clear.

She only looked at him for a second, appearing disinterested in everything around her. "Yeah," she replied in a low voice before turning to stare off into the distance again.

For the second time, Khujand heard a cry from inside of the woman's hut. More desperate this time, he recognized the baby girl's voice as a response to colic - he'd heard his own daughter from his first marriage cry enough times to know the different causes. His heart clenched, rousing instincts he'd thought dormant as he felt the desire to enter the hut himself.

Rotating his long ears around, he detected no sound of another person breathing inside of the hut, nor did the spirits point to any form of life inside other than that of a slightly unwell newborn. Wherever the girl's father was, he wasn't there at the compound.

"Hey, uh...I think ya kid has colic," he said uncomfortably, nervous that his comment might come across as intrusive.

Barely even reacting, the greenhaired mother just sighed heavily. "Yeah," she muttered again, displaying a disinterest in her own daughter that bothered him on a very deep level.

When she made no move to go inside, his own irritation grew. "Even if ya ran outta herbs ta settle her tummy, she'd still probably feel a lot better if ya held her," he suggested cautiously, unable to remain quiet.

Sighing in exhaustion he hadn't even seen from Cecilia in her final week of pregnancy, the woman slid off the railing of the porch, and he got the feeling she was more concerned with just getting away from people. "Thanks," she huffed without looking at him as she walked back inside.

Just before the door swung closed, he saw the little bundle bawling her eyes out in a cradle next to the bed as the mother laid down without picking her up. Once the door actually was closed, barely a sound could be heard.

His heart aching and his patience with his chaperone dwindling, Khujand looked around to be sure that nobody was following him and started down the road. Of course, he did respect the fact that Raene was probably trying to prevent a wider problem form occurring should anybody accost him on the street, but the scene seemed safe enough. Not wanting to just stand around, he explored, assuming that this Ardoren person would eventually find him - especially if somebody spotted him and mentioned his presence.

Before Khujand could get very far, he stopped at an intersection and gazed down a side road. A large procession led by a priestess of the moon ambled slowly, absolutely silent despite the large number of people. Walking to sit on a bench behind a tree and observe, Khujand's voodoo suddenly went wild, and the spirits around him wailed lightly in his ears. One of the drawbacks of voodoo was experiencing negativity of others in the general vicinity.

Among the crowd of numerous volunteers and a few sentinels were two gigantic purple leaves large enough to fold over people. Two long objects, one the size of a person and the other the size of a...baby...were wrapped inside of two giant leaves and carried by the crowd toward an isolated road that Khujand remembered seeing lead to a shrine when flying on his hippogriff.

Near the head of the procession but just behind the priestess were two men. One of them was obviously Ardoren, his flowing green robes complementing his brown antlers as he led another man by the hand. When Khujand looked from the two wrapped bodies to the other man, he finally understood why his chaperone had been busy.

Weeping silently, the man looked absolutely devastated, almost creeping along like an old person despite looking young and healthy. His face was completely shaven, a rarity among night elven men with the exception of demon hunters, and since the man's eyes were intact, he obviously wasn't one of those. What was more unnerving, however, was the fact that the man's head was shaved; it clashed terribly with his features, and looked reminiscent of a dwarf male in mourning.

The spirits whispered to Khujand of loss, of the man's heartbreak and of an empty space that had once held a family. A mental image across the spirit realm of the man walking hand in hand with a pregnant woman was quickly erased as a picture formerly containing three souls suddenly contained only one, and a labor process crowned by silence instead of by a panting mother and a mewling newborn stung Khujand so hard that he forcefully severed his link to the spirits. Voodoo wasn't something one could get rid of once it was learned, so there was no risk of him losing his talents, but the feeling was too intense and he found himself almost tearing up in public.

Not in the mood for exploring, he waited for the procession to move toward the isolated shrine before he got up and walked back to hut number forty three. That was a whole heap of doubt and worry he did _not_ need during what was supposed to be the happiest time of his and Cecilia's life.


	3. Year 33, part 3

**A/N: live natural birth occurs in this chapter. It isn't that graphic since I try to focus on the feeling, but this is just a heads up in case anybody is squeamish about the topic. Also, this is based heavily on a great deal of advice and assigned reading sent to me by Zarabethe, so a great big thanks is due to her for all the information and answers she provided during the development of this story.**

"The baby is coming later on tonight; these contractions are becoming more serious now."

Cecilia let the loose fitting maternity gown slip over her arms and fall down to her shoulders, the flowing robe more freeing than pants. At first, Khujand had tried to help her wear it, once again displaying a clinginess that was as tiring as it was endearing. Then again, just about everything was tiring to her by that point. Even after sleeping fifteen hours a day, she still found her level of energy far below what she'd been used to for the previous twelve thousand years.

After collecting the linens they'd used over the past four days in a basket, he suddenly shot her a very concerned look. "Ya...do ya feel alright? Do ya have any unusual pains, anythin' at all?"

"I'm fine dear, I swear. Just like what was written in the books, I'm not worrying about things, I'm letting my body function naturally, and consequently I feel just fine." She reached behind herself and tugged on his short beard affectionaly. "You can stop worrying, I swear."

Ever since he'd witnessed the burial of a mother and child who'd born been lost during birth, her husband had been a nervous wreck. Of course, she knew why: not only was he the type to worry, but his voodoo also caused him to be more sensitive to the sympathetic vibrations of the souls of the living and the dead. The upside was that in the last days of her pregnancy, she was able to accept him pampering her, and he appeared to relax a bit when she allowed it. Her usual retired sentinel pride peeled back somewhat, and she was more amicable to him bringing things to her instead of fetching them herself, and even allowed him to carry her to the communal bathhouse once.

Still a bit shaken, he looked over his shoulder as he carried the basket outside to the laundry hut. "Please, Cici...if ya feel any sort of discomfort at all, or if anythin' seems amiss-"

"Then I'll alert the attendants first, and you second," she chortled, enjoying his initial reaction when she teased him.

"Wha? Well...okay, I guess that'd be tha better choice," he signed. "I'm gonna be right back."

Disappearing outside, he gave her a necessary break on what she was absolutely certain would be the last day of her pregnancy. Her contractions had grown intense, but not painful. One of them had woken her up the previous day, and they'd been increasing in frequency ever since. When the first one of any significant intesity didn't cause her pain, she felt her energy increase somewhat; it could have been a placebo effect, so to speak, but knowing that staying active, eating right and simply not worrying or stressing over the ordeal would aid the process helped her to clam down significantly. That calmness, she felt, was possibly part of why it all seemed relatively comfortable.

Placing her hand on her belly once more, she felt her son shift again. "Very soon, little one; mommy and daddy are going to hold you very soon," she whispered, her grin so wide that she felt like the muscles of her face were getting a workout.

Mental images of what it would be like to finally hold a small essence of life in her hands, one drawn in part from her own essence, floated through her head. She remembered what her niece had felt like when born...she could almost feel the tiny weight of the infant girl on her lap again, shaking a rattle and babbling as Cecilia buried her nose in the girl's baby hair. Unelia had actually outranked Cecilia during the Long Vigil, and had commanded units during patrols in more dangerous areas; that she'd taken to naturally to motherhood felt so uplifting and reassuring.

"Mommy is...a lot older than daddy," she hummed out loud, finding the act of speaking to her unborn child incredibly relaxing. "She's waited so long to find the right daddy, and now everything is ready. The world has been waiting for you for so long, and there are so many people who want to see you...I know your cousins can't wait. And Anushka - she's our friend and neighbor - she wants to play with you so much. And my uncle Eli, who's your great uncle...nothing makes him happier than to see our family line continued. He's the oldest member of the family. It just makes him...so proud. And now mommy's gone and made herself weepy."

For a few moments, Cecilia just stood in the hut and stretched, not wanting to show her son that she was upset. Whether or not he would truly be able to detect her feelings, she didn't know, but she preferred not to risk it. Bracing herself against the wall, she just focused on stretching her various muscle groups while still retaining her balance. Her uncle was a sore spot for her, and a reminder that the end her people had never expected was near. Although many among their people bemoaned the onset of natural death experienced among older night elves as a tragedy, Cecilia embraced it as a part of their return to normal life. That meant, however, that she had to minimize any sources of negativity in her life as much as possible in order to always look at the bright side.

"You know, your great uncle Eli still likes to go for walks sometimes. Maybe that's what you and mommy need right now..."

Carefully measuring her steps, Cecilia took a deep breath and nearly laughed at the great pressure that her baby bump put on her lungs. While her body had changed relatively little during the whole process, she still wasn't quite used to the feeling; twelve thousand years of agile sabre riding and tree climbing had caused her to grow used to her nimble leaps and sprints. Fortunately, her patience was immense, and measuring those steps was a small feat if that's what would aid in the process of bringing a new life into the world.

Out on the road in front of their hut, she breathed in the crisp night air, slowly allowing it to fill her lungs. The overall quiet of the compound was lovely, and she never found herself bothered by any sort of foot traffic or busyness. A few times, she even chatted at length with other mothers at one of the communal halls used for food preparation, getting to know the descendants of women she'd served with in the Satyr War, and even noticed a thousand year old sentinel she'd trained herself many centuries ago.

The age difference between herself and the other women at the compound was noticeable, especially when Cecilia met the _granddaughter_ of a woman that she'd served on patrols with during a temporary assignment that had seen her patrolling up and down the sparsely populated coast of Winterspring for half a century. At length, Raene had assured her that based on research of the younger lived races, birth late in life was indeed possible and likely to be safe given a proper diet and healthcare. The science for translating that over to night elves wasn't exact: women born during immortality (which had ended a mere twelve years prior, and thus included **all** Kaldorei of childbearing or siring age) spent long periods of their lives not ageing. They would grow up into adults, and by the biological age of twenty or so, they'd just stop ageing. However, the older generations - pretty much anybody over the age of one thousand - had already started to show signs of ageing. A few aches and pains here, an illness that lasted more than four days there.

In the case of those born _before_ immortality had begun, natural death had finally become a reality again. From Cecilia's ancestral village of only twenty five inhabitants alone, two had already died of old age, as had others among their kind. Aside from Cecilia, two other women born even before the Sundering had given birth, according to Raene. The compound's founder had been very honest with Cecilia: of those two women, one of them lost her child, as the rate of infant mortality among night elves in general was high due to the loss of birthing and parenting skills experienced from being immortal for so long. The other individual had managed to raise a relatively healthy child, though she herself had developed diabetes during the pregnancy and continued to experience both problems with her insulin levels as well as a slipped disc in her backbone. The overall outlook was troubling, even for one as stalwart as Cecilia.

But...so far, her pregnancy had been rather easy, comparatively speaking. At no point had she experienced any true difficulties, and both Ardoren and Raene declared her as fit as an expectant mother one twelfth her age after examining her.

Her concentration on measuring her steps was broken by another pained cry from the hut next door.

Gritting her teeth, Cecilia felt a measure of resentment spike inside of her, though not at the innocent child crying for attention. At exactly one week old, the newborn new door had technically been staying at the compound for a few days beyond what was considered necessary for a health child. Unfortunately, that stay was precisely because the child _wasn't_ healthy. After the girl's mother (who'd refused to give her name to anybody other than Raene) had failed to successfully nurse, and after the infant hadn't been able to calm down enough in order to try, Raene had resorted to requesting Lurella to feed the girl a formula developed by the humans. Even for that race, the liquid was imperfect and would lead to malnutrition if too much of the baby's diet consisted of that artificial mixture instead of real, actual breast milk. For elves, it was just barely better than not feeding the baby at all, and the girl had been unsuccessfully fighting off an illness for the entirety of her first week of life.

Tired of listening to a newborn child sob and gurgle on mucus due to post nasal drip that just wouldn't stop, Cecilia walked in measured but markedly more rapid steps to the porch and stared down the green haired mother, wearing the same bathrobe and leaning over the same railing.

"Anathil sounds very upset," Cecilia said in a tone bearing a sternness she couldn't hide.

Staring off into the distance, the inattentive mother barely even registered a response. "Thanks," she said while lightly flicking her wrist as if to shake the ashes off the tip of an imaginary cigarette. Eventually, she turned her head and made eye contact when she realized that Cecilia was still staring at her.

"It's extremely unhealthy for you to leave her alone and unheld for literally most of your day and night. She cries most of the time that she's awake, and her mom ignoring her isn't going to help that."

At first, the younger woman crooked her neck back as if surprised. Looking Cecilia up and down, she appeared a bit taken aback, as if nobody had called her out on her negligence up until then.

"She cries all the time because she's sick," the woman replied defensively, visibly stiffening up and looking very much like a stereotypical omega caught doing something wrong.

"Then go hold her," Cecilia told the woman without an ounce of hesitation or shyness about making a personal comment toward a stranger for the sake of an infant. "Stop hanging out on your porch most of your waking moments and comfort the life you brought into this world."

A tiny modicum of defiance worked its way into the woman's voice, and coupled with a relatively strong contraction Cecilia felt starting to push downward through her core, it only irritated (but also energized) the ancient elf even more. "My kid does nothing but cry and poop all day; so please mind your own business-"

Acting on instinct and without regrets, Cecilia's hand shot out to grip the green haired woman's wrist tightly. Even on the day she expected to deliver, she felt that familiar sense of being empowered by a bad mood. "A neglected child is _everybody's_ business; I hear little Anathil crying all the time while you sit out here on the porch," she said in a low voice while pulling the woman closer. Cecilia was tall, even taller than about half the men of their race, and was easily able to hold on to the younger and no longer pregnant woman. "That child didn't ask to be brought into this world where it's greeted with pain and illness; _you_ brought her into this world yourself, _you_ are responsible as her mom for giving up a measure of your own piece of mind to preserve that physical embodiment of innocence in there," she nearly growled, her irritation spiking at the audacity of the woman to actually defend neglecting her child.

The sound of Khujand's approaching footsteps up the road caused Cecilia to release the smaller woman from her grip, though she gave one last judgmental glare for which she felt no remorse before turning around to meet her husband at the porch of their own hut. A small sense of satisfaction made her grin when she heard the other mother finally go back inside of her hut. Khujand noticed, and sent Cecilia a puzzled expression.

"Some people just need to get told," she said, silently praying that the woman would actually pick the child up instead of merely sitting next to the cradle.

Her husband, however, appeared moderately uncomfortable. "I'm not happy with tha way she ignores her kid either, but I didn't feel it was our place ta comment."

"It's everybody's place; it takes a village to properly raise a child." Feeling as if the matter was finished, she took him by the arm. "Would you perhaps be up for a brief walk?"

Easily forgetting the issue, he held her hand in his but looked around in concern. "Miss Wolfrunner still wants me ta make sure Ardoren is with me if I go wanderin' around."

"Nah, I'm sure it isn't really a big deal as long as I'm...just a second..."

She tripped his arm even more tightly for a few moments, feeling the next contraction pushing through her core in the same downward motion. As had been the case until then, it wasn't painful, but it felt very powerful, as if a wave was slowly forcing its way regardless of whether flesh or bone stood in its path. The force caused her to waver slightly, and she felt her husband tighten his own grip on her as well.

"Cici?" he asked, a form of concern that was devoid of much of his usual worry lacing his tone of voice.

Deep inside, something spoke to her. It was too base, maybe even too primitive to be called an inner voice; it was more like an inner feeling. Nervous at the potential for the endgame to prove problematic but excited to meet a person for whom she'd dreamed off even during her own childhood, she looked up at her husband and furrowed her brow in awe.

"On second thought, could we just go back into the hut for a while?"

His own hairless brow furrowed in confusion at first, but his expression slowly changed as he started to realize what she meant. "Oh...uh...oh! Loa! Ya mean...now?" he asked, his eyes as wide as saucers, or dinner plates even by the standards of gnomes.

"Well, not _now_ now...but...I would rather be inside at the moment. Especially near that rubber ball that Ayleah dropped off for me this evening."

"Right, ya, of course, dear!" Khujand replied as he helped her more than was actually necessary as they walked back up the steps of the porch and into their own hut, the previous confrontation already forgotten.

Inside their hut was the aforementioned ball, a large, inflated object that almost looked like a toy. Ayleah, one of the more pleasant volunteers at the compound, had brought several of them from her mother's workshop in Astranaar. Cecilia had found a number of exercises to be manageable and comfortable in what she'd felt would be the final day of her pregnancy. Although she felt more excited than anything, she could sense a measure of apprehension lingering over her husband, and his thick fingers trembled slightly on her arm.

"Like I said, dear: it's not exactly time _now_ , as in right at this moment," she explained as she kicked off her squishy pregnancy sandals and rested one knee on the ball. "But...we're close, and I want to be inside."

"Yeah, of course, girl." He retained his grip on her arm, as though he worried that she'd just fall over at any given moment.

While she did find his worry endearing in general, this was a time when she felt a desire not to be fussed over so much. "And, uh, honey...since this is our first time, perhaps it would be better if one of the volunteers came here for support."

His eyes lit up. "Ah...yeah, that's important...lemme go and check where she is." He kissed her on the cheek and moved to leave, stopping just outside of the doorway. "I'm gonna be, right?"

She smiled at him, knowing he just wanted her to be comfortable and she just wanted to be alone with their son while she relaxed. "Don't rush, dear...make sure you check for her thoroughly. And maybe find Ardoren too, so nobody files a complaint about someone wandering around." _Think positive thoughts_ , she had to remind herself as she remembered her ire at the notion that some people might complain about him simply due to racism.

He nodded and took his leave, and Cecilia found herself alone with her unborn son and her birthing ball. Her contractions were altogether mild, but they had increased in frequency - less than every ten minutes by then. Her level of energy was odd, unlike anything she'd faced in her entire previous twelve thousand years of life. For her entire pregnancy, she'd been exhausted all the time; that sensation had become her new, if temporary, normal. Every contraction swept her like a tiring wave of pressure, and yet every single one of them left her feeling a different kind of energy: less tangible, but very real.

So much of the reading material that Raene had sent her regarding the actual labor process reassured mothers that, all things considered, contractions weren't something to fear. In Cecilia's eyes, that implied that many mothers did indeed feel fear when those waves pressed down. For her, however, those waves were a source of encouragement: a sign that her body knew what to do, and that the balance of nature wouldn't forsake a woman who'd spent ten millennia defending it.

"Let's try to relieve a bit of the pressure, baby," she said out loud to her son as she rolled the birthing ball over between the side of the bed and the wall. Every movement drained her, and yet she felt like it was merely a long march after a victory at war. She felt tired, but the goal in her mind kept her spirits up.

Squatting on top of the ball carefully, she worked herself down in careful, measured movements, not finding herself in any sort of a rush. The moment she sat herself on the ball, another contraction arrived. While she wouldn't describe the feeling as painful, the pressure was intense, and she felt the sudden desire to bend over. Both Raene and her sister Unelia had told her that her intuition would most probably be correct. In spite of the tenderness of the event, her logical side also pushed her to take their advice, and once the contraction was over she braced herself against the wall.

Her weight pushing the ball back until it hit the edge of the bed, she found herself in a safe position where she didn't worry about losing her balance. Normally she'd never worry about that at all, but her husband had been so paranoid for the entire year that a measure of his worry had rubbed off on her.

"Mommy is ready for you, baby...daddy is coming back with our helpers. Everybody is ready...we can't wait to see you."

Wherever Ayleah had been, she must have been busy or difficult to find, as Khujand ended up being gone for over half an hour. The solitude was pleasant as much as Cecilia did prefer to be around people in such a significant time, and she tried to meditate the best she could. Her breathing slowed, though she intentionally sped it up when she felt herself drifting off. Perhaps a holdover from her millennia on patrol, she found herself uncomfortable sleeping alone when she might need assistance later on.

Gradually, the contractions increased in duration and frequency, to the point where she found herself feeling as if the time was drawing near. At the same time, she also found herself quickly growing drowsy. It was a bizarre contrast: each contraction woke her right up, and immediately thereafter she felt like curling up with a newspaper (she didn't read novels or history since she'd basically lived it) and pulling the blanket over her. An odd pain in the left side of her upper back came and went, waking her up and leaving her mildly refreshed even once it had stopped. Surprisingly, she thought of very little during the near hour that she spent alone. She was entirely conscious; just not actively thinking.

Just as she felt another wave crashing, the sound of Ayleah's footsteps pattered up the porch. For a night elf, the midwife was very young - young to the point where she couldn't possibly have borne children herself yet. However, she was kind, enthusiastic and far more pleasant to deal with than Lurella, if not quite as experienced. In fact, she even waited after knocking on the door instead of simply knocking and then opening the door while ironically asking if she could come in.

"Come on in, Ayleah," Cecilia panted right in the middle of another contraction.

"Sister Hearthglen, you seem to be moving along quite well!" the younger elf chirped as she walked inside with a basket full of food. "How are you feeling currently?"

"It's almost time," Cecilia panted in between waves. "We're very close. I just feel so tired, I'm almost afraid that I'll roll off of the ball, but I don't feel comfortable sitting anywhere else."

"Are you hung-"

"Goddess, yes!" Cecilia burst out laughing before Ayleah had even finished the question.

"Alright, alright. Here, I brought some dates...we grew these from the seeds you sent to the compound from the Barrens."

"I could use that sugar!" Cecilia said while taking a handful.

"Right. I also brought some cheese and apples. Your husband is carrying a jug of water."

Before Cecilia could even respond, she ate half a dozen dates and a piece of cheese. "Where is he, by the way? It's been a while. I mean, I feel okay...I...hold on a sec..." She paused when another contraction started. This time, it was strong.

"Well, Lurella complained that he was bothering the birthing moms, but Raene couldn't find anybody actually complaining. This was after Khujand wandered around looking for Ardoren, who then got pulled in to a hut where a mom caught a fever. So Raene sent me and asked your husband to move a boulder that the resident priestess wants to conjure a moonwell around...hey...sister Hearthglen?"

"Just a sec..."

This time, the contraction was different. A wave of warmth washed throughout Cecilia's veins, giving her an odd tingling sensation followed by numbness and then a strange high. The next contraction felt like a tidal wave, yet it was actually a pleasant feeling after the previous one that had triggered a deeper change.

Ayleah knelt down and brushed Cecilia's hair away from her face. "Is it...?"

"Almost...we're very...haaaaaa...very close," she gasped, her sense of exhaustion dragging her down but her new high holding her with a much stronger grip and refusing to let her go.

"Okay...okay...your hubby is on his way. Do you want me to catch him or stay here with you?"

"Please, help me off the ball first and then go find him...he needs to be here."

With much effort, Ayleah was able to help Cecilia into a standing position that left the ancient elf feeling like she'd run a marathon. Once the birthing ball had been rolled away, the young woman helped Cecilia into a position that had her with her knees on the floor and her upper body draped across the bed.

"Is this fine?"

"Yes, I'm more comfortable this way...just...find Khujand," Cecilia yawned as Ayleah nodded and left.

To discern how much time passed was exceedingly difficult. The contractions were coming so fast, yet she literally fell asleep in between a few of them. Though the pressure was intense, the position she'd chosen to sit in was comfortable, and she was glad she'd asked for assistance to shift that way before letting the young woman leave.

Upon waking during her next contraction, her ears pricked up at the presence of her husband sitting next to her.

"Hey girl...ya really zonked out there for a minute."

"I'm just...so tired...but I feel it closing in...we're so close."

There was a shift behind her, and she could sense Ayleah at the door again.

"Uh...sister Hearthglen? Ardoren is unfortunately busy with another case. Are you comfortable where you are?"

"Yes, yes I'm fine," Cecilia replied in between contractions. "I'm just...there's no pain. That isn't what I expected."

"Hey, that's a good thing, right?" the younger elf chuckled politely.

"I'm not complaining, I just...there's a lot of pressure, that's it. And...moving! Something is moving!"

An expression of concern worked its way into Khujand's features, though it was relatively controlled. "Are ya...is everythin' okay?"

"Yes, absolutely." Movement inside of her core made itself very, very much felt during the next contraction, and she grunted a little bit, though not from pain. A sort of opening up occurred at her cervix, and she could almost feel her body...pushing. As if her abdomen had dropped lower, separate from her chest and limbs. "It feels...it feels too soon!" she exclaimed, grinning and nearly laughing.

"Too soon for what?" Khujand asked nervously.

"Your baby is almost here, mister Hearthglen," Ayleah assured the worried troll.

Pressure mounted in Cecilia's lower back, and despite the incredible sense of joy she felt at the coming of her child, the sheer amount of pressure finally caused her enough discomfort to worry. "Honey, push on my lower back...just push."

"Like this?" he asked while dropping to his knees behind her.

Just when he pushed heavily in the right spot, another wave came on - this one was the most intense yet. An odd grunt that was long, drawn out yet strangely high pitched emitted from her nose and vibrated to the point where her teeth felt tickled inside of her mouth. Ayleah had to stifle a chuckle, though Cecilia didn't mind since it sounded odd even to her. Deep down inside of her, that message - that very base idea that she couldn't even call a voice - communicated to her again. It was time.

"It's time...for the baby to come. Now. It's...this is...ready," she panted, the tired muscles in her thighs trembling with the strain to maintain her position. During the Satyr War, she and the other huntresses had formed a shield wall and held back a larger wave of fel guards crashing against them as they defended the archers; she'd held steady then, and damned if she wouldn't will her legs to remain steady now. Another oddly high pitched grunt traveled up through her throat involuntarily, and Khujand held his wide palms steady and pressed on her lower back.

A measure of pain finally stung her nether region a bit, but she refused to wince at such a joyous occasion. As the contractions continued coming and both her husband and her midwife thankfully remained silent and supportive, she sensed Ayleah moving around her.

"I'm ready," the young woman said while slipping a cushy pile of blankets on the floor in between Cecilia's knees. "Mister Hearthglen, you don't even need to move. Everything is ready for the baby."

Cecilia didn't hear him respond, though he might have; she wouldn't have been able to pay attention at that point. Several more contractions arrived, and as if reading her thoughts, Khujand continued to press on her lower back and Ayleah stayed quiet and stood behind them. A sort of mental numbness similar to the more feral, almost non sentient state she and other older night elves had lived in during the Vigil took hold, and she began to drift into more instinct than free will. Pain pinched her between her legs again, this time more akin to a very old burn wound being rubbed the wrong way, which was not as much as she'd expected such a movement to hurt. Only when she felt it was time, inside, did she start to push.

For a split second she panicked and then regained her bearings as her midsection shifted, suddenly moving and shrinking so quickly that she felt herself physically change. A great deal of pressure jumped off of her lungs, and each breath suddenly brought in what could be described as too much air. She continued pushing for a second even when Khujand removed his hands, unaware of what had happened.

"Mister Hearthglen, please calm down. It's normal for the baby to fall out like that; if he was hurt he'd be crying."

Movement of four hands shifted behind Cecilia as her head spun. The contractions didn't stop, and she felt as if the two minute birthing the placenta was far more difficult than the previous several hours. Not due to physical strain, but due to the fact that she was stuck lying over the bed _not_ holding who she thought the new sound was behind her.

"What! Whoa!"

"It's fine, mister Hearthglen, some newborns are feisty. Just hold while I clean this up...goddess, he's a little fighter, isn't he?"

" **Mine**!" came a growl from Cecilia's own throat that she didn't intend. Due to exhaustion, it lacked force that she wouldn't have truly meant anyway, and fortunately Ayleah didn't take offense.

Slowly, Cecilia felt her lower half wrapped in a towel and three hands helped her roll down into a half sitting, half laying position on a pile of pillows on the floor she hadn't noticed before. Her vision blurred, obscuring the blue outline topped by red that was her husband and the violet blue blob in his arms. Violet blue...neither she nor her husband bore that complexion. Rather, her tattoos did...the tattoos that had marked her entry into the sentinels ten millennia ago. Her baby bore the color of the markings which signified her individual identity.

The smaller form of Ayleah waving as she left to give them privacy disappeared into the fatigue induced blue, and Cecilia found herself reaching out for dear life.

"Hurry, hurry," she gasped, her words not entirely making sense even to her and causing her smile to grow even wider.

What she needed to hurry about, she didn't know. A sense of intense warmth hit her breast, and she found her lower lip quivering despite her smile. Most of the colors in her vision began to merge, and she felt her husband sliding more pillows beneath her head. She clutched the blob close, not even wincing when she felt the searching mouth latch on and cause a measure of pain as she nursed for the first time.

Another source of warmth enveloped her as she started to pass out in the middle of nursing, hugging around both of them. He felt like the greatest pillow for them both, lifting her up perfectly without causing any pain. Through what sounded like several layers of muffling curtains, her husband spoke.

"...name?" was all she heard.

They'd discussed it before. She wanted a big family with as many children as she could bear. They eventually wanted a child named after each one of their parents, but her mind was too hazy at that point. Like a dream, the image of an old tome of rare elven names floated into her mind, flipping through pages of handles so unused that she was sure nobody would forget who her baby was.

"Navarion," she whispered before falling into a very deep sleep.


	4. Year 33, part 4

Ardoren knelt down in front of Cecilia, taking advantage of one of the many intervals in which the new mother had been woken up by her new baby. Khujand squatted out of the way, granting the old druid the space necessary to work but still feeling mildly perturbed at the idea of another man examining his wife. If their friend Anjula had been free, he'd have tried to suggest she come along to volunteer her time at the compound.

Cecilia, of course, appeared totally fine aside from the exhaustion. Navarion had already finished and gone back to sleep, tucked snugly beneath the loose robe she used as a maternity gown. Following Raene's instructions to the tee, she'd rubbed the vernix in to the little baby's skin and hadn't bathed him yet. Fortunately for her, she'd been asleep during the half a dozen times he'd pooped since being born. Unfortunately for Khujand, that left him cleaning up the mess in such a delicate way that, miraculously, didn't cause her to wake up even one time.

Quite a few of this was familiar to him. Though he and Cecilia never talked about it anymore due to her intense jealousy, he could still remember the birth of his daughter with his first wife. He'd been a much younger man then and hadn't participated in raising her, but he still knew what it was like to watch a defenseless blob of himself and feel the urge to smash anything that approached said blob. To be fair, Navarion had inherited much from Cecilia: the infant's skin was the color of her tattoos and his hair was the same deep shade of indigo that was Cecilia's natural color before she started to dye hers. The little folded over ears were slender and elven, as were the glowing silver eyes and the five digits on each limb. The fight that the newborn had in him, however, was all Khujand's.

"Well, sister Hearthglen, he...oh my!" Ardoren chuckled as Navarion emitted a soft, high pitched growl in his sleep in reaction to being touched. "You have a perfectly healthy baby here. Typically, what we observe among the dark trolls is that their children develop much faster than ours due to the shorter lifespans...I'm assuming that as half, your son will be capable of clinging to you or your husband on his own rather soon. Though we have no prior experience with this here, id expect him to walk and talk a little earlier than a purely elven child as well."

Cecilia nodded her head lightly against the pillows stacked behind her and the wall. At one point Khujand had put her under the covers of the bed, and she hadn't even woken up. Although their son was a day old, she was still exhausted, likely due in part to the fact that her energy wasn't what a younger mother's would be. In fact, she hadn't moved from the bed since he'd put her there, and he began to wonder for how long she'd need to rest. Even after the birth of their son, he couldn't stop worrying about anything and everything. Being aware of his own psychology didn't suppress it, either.

"For how long...should I stay?" she asked in a slow rhythm.

"Raene has the final word on those who can or should stay, though the two of us usually aren't far off. Your son, in theory, could return to Astranaar now as long as he is safely secured during the flight. I'm more concerned with you, currently. I sense a disturbance in your lower back, and there's a higher than usual amount of sugar in your system; let's check with her, but upon the first checkup, I suggest that you remain here for at least a week. That way, we can be sure that you're actually letting your body rest enough as well as measure your citrus intake."

For the first time ever, Khujand witnessed his wife easily accept advice from someone who wasn't a former comrade or - as far as he could tell - an older elf. "I thank you...for the visitation...brother," she said slowly, measuring her speech such that she wouldn't need to gasp for air. "I will plan on a week's further...stay, and confer with Raene."

Ardoren stood back up and bowed to take his leave. "I'll inform her momentarily. She should be nearby from-"

The druid's sentence was cut off from the increased volume of the clamor next door. Gritting his teeth, Khujand tried to ignore the wrenching on his heart as he inspected his son to be sure that the newborn wouldn't be disturbed by the cries of the other newborn. Anathil, the several days old girl next door, had been crying again for what seemed like hours in the neighboring hut, and as usual the girl's jade haired mother had been absolutely silent. Once the door was open, the cries became noticeable, as did the sound of the inattentive new mother leaning on the railing of the porch while coping with her tobacco withdraw.

A waking nightmare of Navarion left all to his lonesome on the bed, unable to comprehend the world around him or why he was brought into it without his consent, flashed through Khujand's mind. That image hurt his heart...how could somebody bring an innocent life into the world only to ignore the inherent obligation to nurture it? The though boggled his mind.

"If you'll excuse me," Ardoren said brusquely as he stepped out the door without a further word. Ayleah was on his heels, similarly without saying anything. The sound of hushed conversation reached Khujand's ears only for a few seconds before the two volunteers entered the hut with the wailing infant. The jade haired mother, as usual, allowed the volunteers to handle all the work for her.

By the time Khujand turned to his wife, she'd actually fallen asleep again. A slight frown plastered itself across her lips, greatly upsetting him. While Khujand was bothered by the negligence of the mother next door, he felt as if there was a certain boundary he couldn't cross in terms of commenting on someone else's parenting skills. Cecilia, however, hadn't interacted with the stressed out woman positively; not even a single time. For his twelve thousand year old wife who knew ten thousand of military service, duty and obligation weren't concepts to be questioned. That woman had brought a child into the world, and regardless of her circumstances, Cecilia believed that the parents' own happiness becomes subordinate to the child's via their decision not to terminate the pregnancy. And for a person whose core beliefs were formed across such a long period of time, the sound of the forgotten child had angered her to no end.

His wife and son secured, Khujand felt his heart strings pulling him against what his brain told him was the more rational choice. Rising slowly so as not to wake either member of his budding family, he crept outside of the hut and took his time closing the door behind him.

Over on the porch next door stood the mother, her fingers no longer moving as if flicking the ashes off of a cigarette. Even from such a distance, Khujand could smell the burnt tobacco on her jade colored hair, though his sense of smell was more sensitive than that of the elves. How she'd smuggled tobacco into a safe space for nurturing mothers and children was beyond him, as was the courage to answer the question for himself as to whether she smoked in front of her newborn or not. Another mother who had been rocking her own newborn on a porch across the little road gave the woman a dirty look before entering her own hut, but the jade haired mother didn't react to anything at all.

Khujand ambled up to the porch, unsure of what exactly he wanted to do but unable to leave the sound of an upset newborn. "Uh...evenin' sister..." he said, letting his voice trail off in another attempt to learn the woman's name.

More numb and distant looking than usual, the woman titled her head halfway toward him and nodded. "Yeah," she muttered in a voice barely loud enough to hear, especially when little Anathil was still crying inside of the hut.

"So, um...do ya need help with anythin'?"

Laboriously sighing as if even her show of dismissiveness consumed an unwarranted amount of energy, the woman shook her head. "There's help inside," she replied tersely.

He was about to push her again when the sound of familiar measured footsteps sounded off from behind him.

"Mister Hearthglen, do you require assistance?" Raene, the founder of the entire compound, asked as she came to a stop in front of the two huts. Lurella was in tow, her judgmental scowl dancing between both Khujand and the negligent mother.

Trying to control his smile so as not to bare his teeth, Khujand tried to be as gracious as possible. Though Raene always remained a bit suspicious of his motives and behavior, she'd taken a huge step by allowing him in the compound at all, and he always tried to reciprocate via his tolerance of being monitored. "No, sister Wolfrunner, thanks; I'm just tryin' ta see if Anathil's mom here needs any help."

Quickly shifting her interest once she'd confirmed that he wasn't stalking about, Raene turned to the jade haired woman. "As am I. It sounds as if there's a disturbance inside. May I come in?" Her tone of voice was polite but firm, and she obviously wasn't asking so much as informing the mother in a nice way.

In contrast, the woman just waved her finger in a circle, not even bothering to talk out loud to the woman responsible for providing her with free food, lodging and medical care for days on end. Raene shouldered her way in, pointing for Lurella to wait outside. Whether the less warm and fuzzy volunteer was monitoring Khujand or the woman with jade hair, the jungle troll did not know.

A tense, awkward silence ensured, and persisted even when Anathil's cries grew weaker and trailed off. Another hushed conversation, this time a little more urgent, took place inside for a few moments before Raene walked back out. Lurella gained a sudden expression of righteous fury, but kept her mouth shut when Raene subtly pointed a finger at her. Anathil immediately began to fuss again once Raene had left.

"She appears to have a microbe in her intestines," the compound founder started by explaining. Her tone was flat and even, but the spirits told Khujand of the frustration building up within her, similar to Cecilia's anger but much, much more tempered and controlled. "Because she's malnourished, her immune system appears to be struggling to expel it."

Displaying so little concern for the infant that Khujand questioned his own perception of the conversation, Anathil's mother waved her hand. "The druid can cleanse it," she mumbled.

Pausing as if to retain her composure, Raene smiled the way a person does when they're upset. "It doesn't work that way. A microbe is something natural; it isn't a germ or a virus. Illnesses and infections can be cleansed; a simple, natural disturbance to the digestive system can't. And as long as she isn't receiving proper nutrients via her mother's milk, she will continue to struggle."

Anathil's mother shook her head as if this were a negotiation, shocking Khujand and Lurella into a bizarre sense of solidarity. "I told you, she refuses to nurse. That's not my fault."

Lurella tried to talk, only to be silenced by Raene's finger again. "This isn't about blame; this is about saving the soul of a newborn. As we discussed, citizen," Raene explained tersely, and Khujand noticed that she didn't refer to the woman as her sister, "the formula isn't sufficient for elves. Given the rate of infant mortality, it isn't an exaggeration to say that this child whom the goddess has blessed you with is fighting for her life. She needs proper nourishment."

For the first time in a very long time, Khujand's impulsiveness didn't end up embarrassing him in the end.

"What about wet nursin' her?" he blurted out of nowhere.

Before he could even blush, Raene turned to look at him, almost as if she'd been expected him to speak. Even Anathil's mother curiously peered at him out of the corner of her eye.

The sudden attention only increased Khujand's anxiety. Nursing involved breasts, and he was talking to women who weren't his wife. The entire topic made him uncomfortable, though he wasn't able to wallow in that feeling long enough to regret having spoken.

"Wet nursing is a completely natural act, and nothing to feel shy about," Raene said, as if she could sense his discomfort. "It's an incredible act of sisterhood and heroism in some cases; mother's milk contains a mix of nutrients and vitamins that are perfect for newborns and cannot be imitated synthetically. And for a child this young, it's her only real source of sustenance; _not_ water." She shot an acrimonious look halfway toward Anathil's mother, but didn't allow the younger woman to notice before she looked to Khujand again. "Have you spoken to Cecilia about this?"

As much as Khujand disliked lying, he knew that the spirits could lead him toward all the right nuances - the right cadence of voice, the right facial expression, the right twitch of his ears - to fool specific people after having spent time around them. Tapping in to his voodoo and even a bit of hypnosis that his boss at work back in Ratchet (also a Darkspear) had taught him, he fudged the truth for the sake of the infant.

"Yeah, we did. Ya know, since we only got one kid, she figured that if anybody nearby needed it, she wouldn't mind helpin' out."

Anathil's mother breathed a subtle but visible sigh of relief, though Lurella retained the skeptical expression that she often shot Khujand. Raene, on the other hand, appeared as close to visibly thrilled as he'd ever seen her.

"May Elune bless you both, and always keep your paths lit," she said while stepping toward the door. "I'll inform Ardoren and Ayleah that we've found a temporary solution. If you could, please inform Cecilia that Anathil will need to feed as soon as possible."

"Right away," he replied, hurrying away both to escape Lurella and cover his proverbial tracks.

Inside of their own hut, he found Navarion still sound asleep. Cecilia sort of drifted in and out; she'd gotten a good ten hours of rest considering the fact that she seemed able to nurse while asleep despite the mild pain she'd described to him during the process. Khujand simply moved Navarion over to her breast, held the baby in place to eat, and then burped him and cradled him until he fell asleep. Doing the math, he figured that Cecilia hadn't nursed from her left breast in over four hours; he knew very little of how a mother produced milk other than that the more she nursed, the more her body would produce in reaction. So if the neighboring baby latched on to that side...

"Allison...bast...erd..." Cecilia mumbled, cursing her former boss in her half sleep. She looked so cute as she fell in and out of consciousness. She almost looked unsuspecting, and about as close to innocent as his wife would ever get.

"Eh...Cici...remember that part of tha baby books about wet nursin' and stuff?" he whispered to her.

"Pig faced...crooked teeth..."

"Well, tha baby next door is sick. Real, real sick. Her mama won't feed her right, so I kinda told Raene that ya already agreed ta wet nurse."

At that, Cecilia regained a measure of her cogency. "You what?" she asked, not upset so much as confused.

Unable to stop himself from frowning, he scooted closer to her on the bed. "She might die, Cici. Those are Raene's words, not mine. She's malnourished cause her mama just gave her water."

Although she lacked total context, Cecilia's face softened. She looked down at Navarion, who was fast asleep on her stomach. Her gown was unbuttoned, covering her but also providing easy access were there to be a second child. "That woman..." she growled at first. "Alright. From what little we read, it should be entirely possible as long as I rest and eat enough. Sort of like nursing twins."

"That's what I was thinkin' too."

A knock came from the door. "Good evening, Cecilia, it's me," Raene said from the other side, obviously under the impression that the new mother had been expecting this for more than forty five seconds.

"Come in, please," Cecilia replied in her quietest loud voice she could muster. When Raene walked inside with the fussing, jade haired baby, Cecilia's long eyebrows furrowed in pity. "She's in pain."

"Were she an adult, we'd continue restricting her only to water and no food," Raene said as she closed the door and walked over toward the bed. "But she's gone for too long without anything; we have to risk her putting a little more in her stomach if she's to gain some strength. As it is, this intestinal problem will be her end."

Khujand tensed up a bit when Raene laid one knee in the bed, but thankfully she seemed even more averse to closeness than he did and she quickly handed Anathil to him. Immediately, he noticed the weight difference between the baby girl and his baby boy. Even if Navarion was half troll, the disparity was still too great; she felt frail, and her limbs weren't chubby. Her ears had started to unfold, which looked just as cute in its own way, and the way she could almost open her eyes by then made her seem more alert. Though she wouldn't be able to see great detail at her age, he could tell that her attention was fixated on him, and it wasn't lost on him that the silver glow of her eyes was weaker than usual.

He held her close to him while Raene watched on. He knew that to elves, his appearance was a bit brutish, and he didn't want the newborn to freak out. As gently as he possibly could, he cradled her close to his chest, taking care that his beard didn't tickle her face. Even though it was possible for him to use hypnosis to calm her, he did no such thing; he wanted her to understand on her own that he was a caregiver.

At once, the fussing stopped. Anathil looked up at him, her eyes trying to focus on the man holding her. A sort of serenity worked its way into her demeanor despite the weakness and hunger that he could feel wafting off of her, and she didn't even become scared when he smiled.

"Mister Hearthglen, you might want to lay next to your wife. That way, Navarion won't need to be moved; your body can support Anathil's weight," Raene said from just away from the bed. When she noticed Cecilia looking up expectantly, she flashed her a smile. "Ayleah is on her way back from the communal dining hall with a basket of fruit and cheese. There should be a boiled egg or two as well."

"Thank you so much, Raene," Cecilia sighed as Khujand settled in next to her. The compound founder, for her part, only nodded and observed, likely wanting to be sure that the sick child was able to successfully nurse.

Using his body as a bridge, Khujand closed the gap between him and his wife, letting Anathil lay in between them. Nervousness rose up inside of him as Cecilia opened her gown, trying to gently coax the newborn into eating. If they failed to help the child, he knew that he'd ultimately end up blaming himself and not her mother.

Much to his relief, Anathil immediately latched on, eliciting a slight wince from Cecilia at first. Any doubts Khujand had held were dispelled, aside from his creeping suspicion that Anathil had never rejected her mother's breast. He highly suspected that the woman had simply stopped trying.

Under Raene's watchful eye at first, Cecilia nursed Anathil for a good few minutes, though the girl consumed much less than Navarion. He grinned giddily the whole time, reverting to a flashback about the day his own daughter had been born during his first marriage. When he burped her, he didn't let go until Ayleah returned with food and Raene insisted that Anathil's mother then take over from there, whether the woman felt ready after her tenth break from parenting that night or not.

For hours thereafter, all was quiet from the hut next door. Cecilia continued to sleep most of her time away, partially because Navarion would wake up every two hours to poop and then eat again. Sometimes Khujand managed to help the newborn nurse and change his diaper without waking up his wife; sometimes she'd wake up. All things considered, she'd handled Navarion's first two nights like a true soldier, asking for help when she needed it but never once complaining. Indeed, she seemed even mor ecstatic than him despite her exhaustion. After half the night had passed, Anathil began to cry again, eventually throwing up what sounded to be liquid formula by the sheer amount of it. Though Khujand grew concerned when Cecilia grimaced at the sound, thankfully the girl's mother never shouted, and seemed to be trying to do her job at least halfheartedly.

It wasn't until the daytime that Khujand noticed things were awry. Since he hadn't been burdened with the tiring job of actually birthing and then nursing the boy, he had more energy with less sleep, and randomly woke up around noon in spite of having adjusted to his wife's nocturnal lifestyle long ago. All was quiet in the compound, including the hut next door. The only exception was the occasional rhythmic bound of a pebble against the side of their hut. Having long ago retired from the battlefield, Khujand's situational awareness had dimished to a level between that of a soldier and a civilian, and he didn't realize that the pebbles wre being thrown on purpose until after a few tries.

Sliding away from his wife and son once more, he took extra special care squeezing himself through the door without allowing any sunlight to break through. His eyes adjusted quickly, and he noticed that the little road was empty. Nothing strange there: even at night when the Kaldorei were active, nobody really wandered around. Some of the mothers, both those days away from birthing and those a few days after, would go for walks around the administrative area and near the dining halls, but otherwise silence and emptiness was the norm.

Thus it wasn't difficult for Khujand to see the movement right in front of their own hut's porch. The jade haired woman stood there, wearing full travel leathers and standing next to a duffel bag. The expression on her face was one of fatigue, but not physical. Tension only mounted when he realized that the blanket she held in her arms contained her baby in it.

"Wha...washyu doin'?" he asked, suddenly stiffening up on reflex.

For a few seconds, the woman just gazed at Anathil, a strange, faraway look shining in her eyes. That look terrified him, as did the way she held on to the infant so loosely as if she weren't that precious.

"Thank you for your help..." the woman said in an oddly emotionless, monotone voice.

Something was wrong. Not magically; Khujand would have sensed corruption. No, there was something wrong in the woman's head. He didn't like the situation at all; not her apparent disassociation, not the renewed stench of tobacco in her hair, not the way her shape nails laid so close to the baby's soft skin. Every single hair follicle in his mane stood up on end on the back of his neck, and he felt the sudden urge to hit the woman as hard as he could and snatch Anathil from her.

He took a step forward, knowing he was still fast enough to grab her if she made any sudden movements. He didn't know exactly what he'd need to grab the child for, but the desire was driving him.

"Washyu doin'?" he asked a little more forcefully, turning up the bass in his voice when speaking to the young mother for the first time.

Her reaction was immediate, and she almost snapped out of her haze when she heard his tone. If she'd been thinking of anything as crazy as what he'd feared, then she quickly laid it to rest, and he hoped it had just been his paranoia speaking to him.

"I'm...so sorry. So very sorry. But I can't do this..." At a snail's pace, she held her arms out, offering Anathil to him, and he snatched the infant and clutched her to his chest. "I can't...and I don't want to."

Perplexion tainted every thought in his mind as he struggled to overcome his denial. What he'd just heard was the ugliest statement he'd witnessed in a very long time, and he almost doubted his hearing at first. Holding on tight to what was, in his view, a treasure more valuable than real actual jade, he just stared dumbfounded at Anathil's biological mother as the woman backed away.

"How can ya...ya...why? Where ya gonna go?"

Shouldering her pack, the woman was overtaken by a sense of calmness and relief that disgusted him. "Out the same way that I brought my cigarettes in," she replied before walking and then jogging down the road toward the out wall of huts, in between them, and toward the seemingly impenetrable wall of ancient protectors surrounding the compound. In spite of the laws of physics, she squeezed through the impossibly small spaces in between the ancients, quickly disappearing into the night.

Khujand stood alone in the road aside from Anathil, who laid sleeping in his arms. Too many emotions roiled around inside of him, as well as too many questions without answers. The only fact clear to him at that moment was the abandoned newborn in his arms, slumbering away and unaware of the horrors of a world cruel enough to lead her own mother to forsake her.


	5. Year 33, part 5

**A/N: very big warning for child loss triggers here. There is no death in this chapter, but the depiction of infant Anathil suffering from jaundice, dehydration and an intestinal microbe is very graphic. If you're affected by the near death experience of an infant, then please skip this chapter.**

For the entire first two nights, Navarion had never cried. He'd fussed, he'd fought, he'd even growled, but he never cried. But children and babies understand when things are amiss, and Anathil's pain eventually unsettled him enough to cry as well.

Cecilia held him to her chest, patting him on the back even after he'd burped due to his fussiness. Khujand sat across from her on the edge of the bed, holding Anathil in one hand and trying to wipe the vomit, water and liquid formula from his shoulder with the other. Anger boiled up inside of Cecilia again, and she tried to restrain herself for the sake of her son.

"It's like she tried to force feed the poor baby right before leaving," she lamented, feeling zero sympathy for the overwhelmed runaway mother regardless of Khujand's attempts at rationalization. "Even for someone with no experience, it takes a real idiot to try and stuff her mouth like that."

Khujand was mostly engrossed in cleaning the remains of Anathil's last meal before sleeping from his shoulder. "She's gone now...whatever we say, she left," he muttered as he cleaned, a measure of acrimony in his voice as well. He finally looked up at her, an expression both tired and apologetic on his face. "Tha rag is gettin' warm. I need ta wet it again."

Sighing under duress from the difficult situation, Cecilia shifted on the bed so she could hold both fussing infants. "Right here," she said while motioning for her husband to place Anathil on her free arm. He did so, and then took the rag from the baby's forehead and walked over to the clay water jug in the corner.

So had most of the daytime gone for them. When Khujand had first brought Anathil to the hut, Cecilia cursed the newborn's biological mother and cussed up a storm, then resigned herself to going back to sleep and informing Raene that the nameless woman had abandoned her innocent child once the morning came.

But they didn't make it that far into sleep. About an hour later, Anathil woke up crying as if in pain, and not a normal internal pain like colic. Her cries were denoted by terror, as if the baby didn't comprehend what was happening or why she was uncomfortable, and Khujand had the wherewithal to check Anathil's forehead and realize that she'd come down with a fever. Then Navarion woke up upset, worried and confused as to why another baby was crying. They'd had to juggle the two while rotating wet rags on the girl's forehead in an effort to reduce her temperature.

The reality was that there was little else they could do other than wait. If Khujand left to make an emergency call to Ayleah or Ardoren's quarters, he'd have to leave Cecilia alone, exhausted, and slightly immobile due to her lower back pain while caring for two infants, one of them with a fever and nausea. If Khujand stayed to care for the two babies, Cecilia would have to walk all the way to the volunteer's lodging with aforementioned lower back pain, which she had to admit she didn't feel safe doing. Thus they'd decided to wait for one of the volunteers to come on their morning rounds, and report what had happened with Anathil's biological mother at that time.

But when Anathil's fever was followed by vomiting, their plans were derailed. As self controlled as Khujand had become over the past few years, Cecilia could also sense the dent in his armor as he tried and failed to comfort the suffering infant. Even the cool rags on her forehead only provided momentary relief before her stomach started to gurgle again, and soon enough her temperature would increase. The situation was a miserable one, and even for her own stalwart self, Cecilia felt the difficulty. Fel fire and bolt throwers, she could bear; the sound of a newborn baby in agony just wounded her heart.

Khujand returned to the bed, kneeling on the edge as he held Anathil in his arms. Using as much care as he did with Navarion, he hugged her close to him, his eyes shining with what she figured to be some sort of muscle memory triggered by his paternal instincts waking up once more. With the girl in his arms and the boy in hers calmed down, they had time to plan.

"That's the second time she's thrown up...that woman filled her with far too much of that synthetic slop," Cecilia grumbled. "But Anathil seems cool for now...if you hand her to me, then how fast can you run in a loop and scan the roads for any volunteers?"

He mulled the matter over in his head for a moment. "Two minutes, max. I don't need ta stop and talk ta anybody, so it's gonna be fast." He was already handing Anathil over by the time he'd finished the sentence.

"Please hurry, dear," she said as he walked out of the hut to search for any volunteers to inform.

Alone with both babies, Cecilia scooted back against her mound of pillows packed between her back and the wall. Both of them were awake, but Anathil had calmed down enough such that Cecilia could sit up and lay both babies on their backs in between her legs. Navarion resisted attention from everybody except his mother, and she actually found herself quite comfortable there in the hut with the two infants.

Her heart felt...conflicted. The entire situation wasn't traditional, and her own feelings about the two newborns staring up at her didn't help her spirit relax.

Every time she nursed Anathil, she felt as if she ought to experience more guilt for taking sustenance that her body produced for her biological offspring and giving it to the progeny of another. And yet Cecilia didn't feel guilt; not at all, not even remotely so. That sensation was new to her: to not feel guilty about something, and then to feel guilty for not feeling guilty. Navarion was her blood; Anathil was not. And yet when she saw the way her husband clutched Anathil like a precious gem, when she saw the way the girl gazed up at her while breastfeeding, with such a gaze of trust and reliance, Cecilia felt as if she was seeing a second version of Navarion. In her brain, she thought that it should feel wrong, and as a betrayal to her son; instead, it felt like spreading a gift that wouldn't expire.

Being a few days older, Anathil's eyes were a little more open. Due to her health problem, the silver glow of the newborn's eyes looked faded compared to those of Navarion. They were dimmer than those of a normal night elf, like they'd lost some of their power. In fact, the longer Cecilia gazed at the abandoned infant, the more she felt like she was gazing at a small version of herself. Because of her past drug addiction, Cecilia's own eyes had lost much of her glow. The dim, faded color was a reminder of her folly, and the reason why her household did not permit drugs not alcohol. That dim, weakened light was rare, and an odd sense of self familiarity buzzed in her head as she massaged the cute little shoulders of each newborn.

"I know that feeling," she whispered to Anathil, not entirely completing her sentence but knowing that the newborn wouldn't quite understand her anyway. Still, they would both need to be exposed to language. "I had a tough time too, in the past. I guess it wasn't too long ago, because I'm very old. But it feels like a long time, because...well, these past thirteen years have been the most influential in my entire life."

She ran her hands over their heads, feeling the soft, velvety texture of their hair. One head crowned in jade, and the other in indigo, their heads both naturally smelled good. For a good few minutes she just sat there on the bed, performing baby massages and talking to them quietly until Khujand returned to the hut with Ayleah in tow. He looked more stressed out than she'd seen him in a few years, though the volunteer was thankfully much more relaxed.

"The next hut over really is empty," Ayleah said, obviously forcing herself to smile in spite of the situation. "So...okay. Okay. Everything will be alright; we informed Lurella before we came, and she'll inform Raene shortly."

Cecilia found herself unable to think of that given the way Anathil's breathing became more rapid. Navarion's relatively robust health caused a strong contrast that made the abandoned newborn's situation appear even more dire. "Anathil started having a fever a few hours ago; she's thrown up twice since then," she explained in as clear a voice as she could. "All the vomit contains formula and...how much did you tell her, dear?"

"I told her and Lurella everythin', no exceptions."

"Could you refill the water jug, then? We'll need it to continue wetting the cloth."

"I'm gonna be back soon," he said while taking the four foot tall clay jug and hurrying outside.

Ayleah sat down on the bed, feeling the bulbous foreheads of both infants. "She's burning right now. For how long has the cloth been wet?" she asked.

"Not long; just since Khujand left. She'll become hotter than this, and that's when the nausea seems to set in. We haven't fed her in a few hours because we're afraid that she'll just vomit again, given all the formula and water that her mother filled her with before running off."

"That's, technically, the right thing for you to do," Ayleah sighed while feeling Anathil's stomach. The smile on her face remained, but the light behind it was shattered. "She's going to vomit again. I can already feel it coming."

"You're absolutely sure?"

"Yes, I can feel the movement a bit deeper down. How many times has she defecated?"

Cecilia considered the question only for a moment and her eyes widened. "Not at all...not even once," she replied.

"Then that means that the food isn't even being digested; it's all sitting inside of her stomach. The problem is, the disturbance we detected is inside of her intestines; she'll need to expel it in her diaper, not by throwing it up. But if she's malnourished, then she'll experience difficulty actually digesting anything and thus experiencing a proper bowel movement."

"Can't I feed her?" Cecilia asked, her sense of worry for the abandoned child creeping up in the back of her mind.

"Not while there's still this mess in her stomach. Anathil's mother probably thought that she was doing one last act of kindness by stuffing her baby full before just..." Ayleah's expression hardened for a second, or at least twisted into what the extremely young (by night elf standards) whelp probably considered to be hard. "...she probably thought she was doing a good thing by over feeding the baby as a last goodbye. But since Anathil is already malnourished, near dehydration and fighting off an intestinal bug, just bloating her with water and synthetic formula has likely made things worse."

Ayleah looked up, and Cecilia could almost feel the young volunteer leaning on _her_ for support. "Her outlook is likely much poorer than it was yesternight...I'm sorry," she said in an overly controlled tone that revealed her own sense of worry.

Feeling the burden of caring for two infants and being the pillar not only for her husband but also her own midwife, Cecilia took a deep breath and tried not to let her mind wander toward the inevitable. "Perhaps...we should wait for Raene and Ardoren to arrive and...uh oh." The rumble in Anathil's stomach grew more audible, along with the fussing. She shifted her legs to cross them as she sat, picking up Anathil as fast as could also be considered gentle. Mindful of her biological child, she nodded toward Navarion, who had at least managed to relax for a bit after the baby massage. "Could you hold Navarion, please? I don't want him to feel left out."

"Of course, of course," Ayleah replied, gently picking up the heavier infant and holding him a good distance away from Anathil. "Do you need help?"

"Not now, just...it's coming." Cecilia turned down to Anathil, whose tiny face contorted into an expression of fear. Even on a person so small, whose facial muscles were mostly weak and unmoving, that expression was as apparent as it was heartbreaking. "It's okay, baby. Just let it come out."

Anathil looked up at Cecilia's eyes, both pairs dim and faded. The newborn was too young for actual tears to form, but the skin of her chin below her lower lip began to quiver, and her breathing quickened. Those two terrified eyes looked up questioningly, but not to ask who Cecilia was; there was a sense of familiarity there, as if the child was willing to attach herself to anybody kind enough to pay attention to her for more than five minutes. No, the question that Cecilia could see in those eyes and hear in those whimpers was the simple asking of why this was happening to her.

"It's okay, baby...you're not alone. I'm right here with you." Cecilia ran a hand over the top of Anathil's head, but didn't rock her so as not to make the nausea feel any worse. "Just let it out, so you can feel better. Don't be afraid, I'm here."

A belch followed by a choking sound emitted from Anathil's throat, and she shut her eyes tight as another fit of vomiting came on. Ayleah held Navarion so he couldn't see, and his young mind couldn't quite decipher the sounds.

Formula, water, mucus, and a dark, dark magenta twinge that smelled like bile landed on a towel that Cecilia had strategically placed on her shoulder, staining the cloth and making the ancient elf thankful that she'd tied her hair in a bun after waking up. The act of throwing up was fast, and Anathil gasped for air afterward, unable to properly cry for a few seconds. Cecilia waited for the baby to finish her fit before rocking her again, trying to help her young mind forget about what had just happened but to no avail.

"Okay, it's gone now, you're okay," she whispered while wiping off Anathil's mouth.

Even Navarion became a bit upset at the sound, and Cecilia finally felt a pang of real guilt for her attachment to Anathil. As much as she felt she had a responsibility to her own offspring, she also felt obligated to Anathil as well; the poor infant had been tossed aside carelessly, left to become another statistic in the shockingly high infant mortality rate of the once immortal night elves. Her heart felt stretched between two separate, equally instinctual and biological urges, and when Khujand returned, Cecilia started dishing out orders before seeking consent.

"Honey, take Navarion," she said the moment he stepped inside to set down the water jug.

"Is everythin' alright?" he asked while nearly tipping over and then saving the clay vessel.

"Please take Navarion outside. Go for a walk, play with him, and if anybody complains then tell them to talk to Raene."

Surveying the scene for a second, a measure of incomplete revelation seemed to dawn in him. One of the qualities she could rely on was that he revered her wisdom almost too much; he'd perform tasks she asked of him without even understanding why, which was especially important at that time. His progress in terms of increasing his amount of self control aside, she knew that he'd become too emotional if he saw a newborn baby in such pain, and would possibly slow down the work of the volunteers. Additionally, she wanted her son to be away from the sight of another baby suffering, but didn't want her son to be away from either of his parents: she knew how significant bonding was during the first few days of life.

Killing two birds with one stone, she motioned for Ayleah to hand the boy to her husband. "He's eaten, so he should be fine. Just talk to him, show him colors, and if he sleeps then just sit for a while. I think the volunteers will need a bit of time to look at Anathil here."

"No problem, dead," he said while leaning close to her to kiss her on the forehead. He played with Anathil's hair for a bit as well, giving the stressed out newborn one last sad look before taking their son. "I'm not gonna be too far...ya can send someone if ya need me back here."

Once Khujand had left with Navarion, Ayleah sat a little bit closer to Cecilia on the bed. "Raene should be here any minute now; I'm sure that it won't take long," she said while switching out the towel on Cecilia's shoulder for a fresh one.

"I hope so..."

Thankfully Ayleah was right; after a few more minutes of trying to calm Anathil down over the sound of the baby's growling stomach, Cecilia heard the sound of Khujand chatting nervously with Raene outside. It sounded like she was trying to reassure him and then shoo both him and Lurella away, apparently trusting the professional and technically skilled (if prickly and almost yeti like) older volunteer to chaperone Khujand since most of the complaints about him came from her.

Ardoren had apparently remained silent, as Cecilia was surprised to see him file in behind Raene. Ayleah looked confused as to what to do at first, moving to stand up and then sit down again a few times before Raene nodded in a signal for the younger volunteer to stand aside. Eschewing formal greetings with one of the few remaining elves as old as she, Raene paused for a moment before entering into discussion with Cecilia immediately.

"Your mate informed us of what happened...unfortunately, we have no contact information for Anathil's biological mother."

Cecilia looked down at the whimpering newborn, trying to hum to the girl in between sentences. "I remember you telling me that this happens a lot...I never imagined how awful it would feel to actually see it," she sighed.

Feeling the baby's stomach and garnering a measure of pained mewling, Raene spoke as she looked into Anathil's dim, and now jaundiced eyes. "Over the years, I've learned to estimate the character of people who came through here. As busy as I am, I spent more time visiting the huts on this road than others in part because I wanted to ensure that Anathil's mother remained here at least for the first week. Unfortunately, people can't be compelled to show compassion..." Raene shook her head ever so subtly, as if trying to shake the thoughts away. "I suppose that's beyond the point, now. Sister Hearthglen, it's best to minimize the number of people holding her for the time being; would you mind continuing to hold Anathil while Ardoren checks her condition?"

"By all means."

"Thank you," the druid said as he leaned down and began to hold a palm over Anathil's mostly motionless body. "I just need a few moments."

Everyone fell quiet for a while as Ardoren wove some sort of a cleansing spell over the newborn, his face gradually pulling into a frown as he did. His eyes gained a sort of distant look in them as he focused, and after a rather short period of time he pulled away.

"Her body is becoming even more dehydrated, which is inhibiting her ability to expel the disturbance in her intestinal tract. She's much, much worse than the last time I saw her; there's no way for me to sugarcoat her condition. She won't be able to eat until her body can work out this disturbance; meanwhile, she is starving." Though seemingly aloof in general, Ardoren's eyes bore a sad, contrite shine to them as he stepped away. "The only solution is to put her to bed for a few more hours and wait for either her intestines to clear up, or for her end. I'm very sorry; her chances are slim."

Forced to face what she'd been trying to ignore, Cecilia struggled to deal with a problem that she couldn't simply throw a glaive at. "Thank you for your honesty, brother," she replied, realizing that with Anathil's mother gone, she was the responsible party for the infant.

"Elune be with you both. Sister Wolfrunner?"

"I'll remain here, Ardoren," Raene replied to his inquisitive look. "There's no need to wait; I'll catch up with you on your rounds later."

"Of course." The druid promptly took his leave, and Cecilia found herself with only Raene and Ayleah as Anathil started to fuss again.

"It's coming. She's going to throw up again...that would be the fourth time now." Cecilia held Anathil a bit more closely to her. "It's okay, baby," she sighed, straining on her psyche to prevent her own sorrow from revealing itself to the child. She turned toward Raene. "How do you do it?"

Although Ayleah appeared confused by the question, Raene was old enough to need very little context during conversation, and immediately understood the unspoken part of what Cecilia had asked.

"I stay in contact with maternity specialists from the Alliance races stationed in our forest, and we've also received a bit of literature from a tauren contact in the Cenarion Circle. I don't think any race on our planet faces as high a rate of abandonment as ours...after having lived independently for so long, without a strong need to reproduce, so many of us lost those skills considered innate among other peoples. Coupled with our limited knowledge on prenatal care and pediatrics, and it's safe to say that we still lose more than a third of all the innocent lives that come into the world here."

Raene ran a finger along Anathil's purple cheek. "We have the highest success rate of any birthing center for our people, even more so than Nighthaven. Regardless, we lay so many of these innocent souls to rest on these grounds. If we weren't here, then the rate would most assuredly be even higher. I have felt my heart torn from my chest many times over...but the knowledge of how many more would be lost were we all to quit is my motivation." She paused when Anathil began to cry a bit louder. "It's coming. Be prepared."

Wordlessly, Cecilia took Anathil up in her shoulder as Ayleah brought two more clean towels just in case. The vomiting fit was preceded by choking this time, and the sound of the baby throwing up was deeper and louder this time. When she was finished, Cecilia took Anathil down from her shoulder and winced.

The newborn's stomach had been emptied of all the formula and water, and she'd vomited up bile. Thick, nearly gelatinous strands of extremely dark, dark magenta liquid, like the blood of a sick person, stained the towel and sent Cecilia into an internal panic even if her exterior was under control. She'd seen shield sisters die of stomach poisoning even during immortality, and it had been preceded by the vomiting of bile on an empty stomach. To see someone so small, someone who had no comprehension of what was happening to her entire world, experiencing that killed Cecilia inside.

Anathil looked up at the only true caregiver she'd ever known in her short, difficult life, too dehydrated to even cry. The infant's face twisted into a look of desperation, as if she'd been pushed beyond the point of even whimpering to complain about pain and simply cried out for her agony to stop. Her voice box failed, and no sound came out of her mouth, resulting in a silent expression begging for mercy that Cecilia wasn't able to grant her. Eventually, Anathil settled into a sort of despair state, exhaustion pushing her to the point where all she seemed to do was breathe, blink and stare into Cecilia's eyes.

Ayleah switched out the towel on Cecilia's shoulder, saying nothing as they all waited for the poor infant to pass out. Anathil's forehead remained hot, leading the volunteer to lay another wet cloth on it as well. The silence led Cecilia to a resolution to finally listen to that deep, intrinsic message inside.

"I want to be her mother," she said, a measure of emotion just barely making its way into her voice, though probably too subtly for Ayleah to notice.

Raene continued to give a blank stare, which Cecilia assumed meant that the woman was working hard to keep her own emotions under control. Still, there was a certain lack of surprise in Raene's face, and Cecilia realized that the compound founder might have been waiting for her to finally say that.

"You're willing to formally adopt?" she asked, almost cautiously as if not to push the new mother either way.

Cecilia needed no such pushing, however. "Please. As soon as possible," she replied quietly while rocking Anathil's limp, unconscious body.

Raene pointed toward the door, and Ayleah went out the door, revealing that Khujand had been listening the entire time, cradling Navarion as the other infant also slept. He entered the room and sat on the other side of Cecilia, listening in without talking.

"Cecilia...you understand that there's a strong chance that Anathil will not wake up again?" Raene asked, her eyes shining a bit more than usual even as she spoke in a relatively even voice.

"Whatever happens...please, we want to do this," she replied, running a thumb along one of the gradually unfolding ears. "I can't let her die alone."

Standing and moving toward the door, Raene gave Anathil one last look. "Ayleah will return shortly with the birth certificate...it still has two blank spaces, since Anathil's mother refused to give her name and didn't know who the father is. This sort of paperwork isn't traditional, but Darnassus requested it of us." A bit more of that emotion shone in Raene's eyes, again lost on Khujand but noticed by her fellow retired sentinel. "I'll stop back myself as soon as I can...may Elune bless you all."

She left, and Cecilia found herself alone with her family again. This time, that family consisted of her husband, a biological son, and a daughter that she realized meant as much to her. Even if she hadn't carried Anathil herself, even if they didn't share the same blood, her heart expanded when she admitted inside that the girl wasn't simply another person's child whom she was helping to care for. Anathil was hers and Khujand's, even if it would only be for a matter of hours.

Wife and husband laid down close, balancing the two newborns in between their bodies. They switched while waiting for Ayleah to return with the birth certificate, neither of them speaking before nor after they signed. Falling into a depression induced sleep next to the two bundles of joy, Cecilia's vision remained focused on the sight of the motionless, limp body that Khujand clutched to his chest so dearly until she herself passed out.


	6. Year 33, part 6

Dried tears stung Khujand's eyes with salt as he woke up, surprised to find himself on his back instead of his side. He wasn't the type to toss and turn at night even when stressed; most often, his problem was sleeping in only one position until he woke up with sore ears. Only when his wife rolled him over or tried to move him during his sleep did he ever wake up in a different position than the one he'd gone to sleep in.

However, he didn't have time to think about that. When he realized that his arms were empty and Anathil was gone, he almost experienced a heart palpitation.

"Wha...Thanil! Where!"

He leaned up in his elbow, shaking the drowsiness from his head as he looked around, seeing a mass of purple across from him as Cecilia tried to shush him.

"Not yet, not yet...let's not disturb her."

For a few seconds, Khujand assumed that he was dreaming and waited to wake up. When he continued to just lean there on his elbow, he realized that the thumping of his heart was, indeed, real, as was the sight before him. Cecilia was drowsy as well and looked like she'd been up for a while. Her back was leaning against the wall, again with a mound of pillows to cushion her, and her loose gown had been left open so she could breastfeed on both sides. Two respective sets of curls of indigo and jade hair caught his eye, and he almost didn't notice the wide grin his wife was wearing.

"Anathil pooped," she chucked to herself quietly, a calm sense of relief in her face and voice. "Twice."

Crawling closer to them, he noticed that both babies had been changed during his sleep, and Anathil's breathing was normal. Doing the math in his head, he realized what had happened.

"Ya mean...loa, she cleared tha microbe?" he asked, finding that his heart rate still increased whether the shock came from bad news or good news.

"Let's wait for Raene to come," Cecilia said, her caution overwhelmed by the joy in her voice. "I just want to be sure. But 'Thanil' seems fine." She grinned cheekily as if amused by the way he'd woken up tongue tied.

"Aw...yeah, that's a good idea. But..." He reached out and patted the back of his new daughter's head, earning himself a cranky snort in response. "...she really is eatin' alright, isn't she?"

In spite of her wide grin, Cecilia worked hard to contain herself. "I hope so. I really do hope so."

For the next few minutes, Khujand just watched Cecilia nurse both of his children, in awe of how alive Anathil suddenly appeared. Compared to when he'd gone asleep, she almost looked like a different baby. Her eyes were still a little bit dim, and she finished eating earlier than her new brother, but when Khujand burped her, he felt a calmness in the jade haired newborn that he had never sensed from her previously.

Once both infants had been fed and were cooing for attention, Khujand found himself enamored by them. He and Cecilia spent a great deal of time just playing with and singing to them, all matters of seriousness miraculously gone from their minds. Even when both babies went to the bathroom _again_ , their parents merely laughed, glad more than anything that both of them were healthy and active. Only the extra early approach of Raene, by herself and wearing a surprisingly casual pair of cotton pants used for jogging, snapped the couple out of their giddy stupor.

"Good evening, sister Hearthglen?" Raene said while knocking on the door even th ugh it was open and they could see her. When neither half of the couple could stop laughing due to a face Anathil was making, her voice began to sound perplexed. "Cecilia?"

"Yes, come on in, sister Wolfrunner!" Cecilia replied, unable to stop laughing even when Raene walked all the way through the door.

Sprawled out on the bed, Anathil's eyes were as wide as saucers, staring at Khujand's mouth whenever he turned it up like a grouchy old man down the road. Instead of fearing her new father, the infant pursed her lips as if trying to blow a raspberry. Her arms, over which she could exercise virtually no conscious control, began pulling away from her body like a letter T and then snapping back down into her baby belly again. However, the movement wasn't coordinated, and her arms simply flailed about randomly as she went nuts at the faces her father made. Her brother, on the other hand, seemed content to constantly bleat like a goat every thirty seconds, his movements slightly more coordinated than his new sister's.

"Elune be praised!" Raene cheered quietly, displaying more outward emotion than Khujand had ever seen from the woman. "She ate this evening?"

"Ate, burped, and soiled three diapers." Cecilia pointed to the corner where Khujand had stored the three dirty cloth diapers as well as the wet handkerchiefs he'd doused in water and used as buttwipers.

"Hail to the night, this is far better than I'd expected. This is one case where I'm glad that I was wrong." Stepping inside a little further, Raene cleared her throat to check for approval, and Khujand smiled a bit when he started to decipher all the nonverbal communication between the two veritable ancients.

"Please, come," Cecilia said while lifting Anathil up and offering her to Raene for a brief checkup.

In an astounding show of defiance, the formerly exhausted infant cooed almost angrily when Raene felt her pulse and her stomach. Though Anathil's voice was still a bit weak, her recovery was already well underway, and Raene didn't spend more than fifteen seconds checking her.

"This is marvelous, it really is. So often, the babies who are left behind are the ones who don't make it; without one consistent, loving caregiver, many of them simply lose the will to struggle for survival."

"Yes, I remember reading about the despair state in one of the books you sent me," Cecilia replied, only frowning slightly as she laid Thanil next to Navarion again. "It's like a defense mechanism for babies who are left alone; their instincts cause them to stay quiet to hide from predators until their caregiver returns to them. It's..."

"Let's not think about that right now," Raene said while almost touching Cecilia on the shoulder before retracting her hand. Her smile never faded, especially when she deftly changed the subject. "I'll have Ardoren drop by during his rounds, though I'm assuming that you're able to wait for him to visit others first - this doesn't seem to be an emergency situation anymore."

"No, thank the goddess, he can take his time. I'm sure there are other cases requiring his immediate attention."

"Splendid; you asked me yesterday how I do it, and I'm seeing the answer right in front of me." Raene's entire demeanor seemed lighter and less serious than usual, and Khujand could have sworn that he heard her sigh as she moved back toward the door. "In the meantime, I'll mention to one of the volunteers that you're in need of fresh linens. Though I actually was wondering if you could drop them off, sister."

Cecilia turned to Khujand for a moment, an inquisitive expression of concern on her face. "Cici, I'm gonna be fine. Two bouncin' babes is easy ta handle," he chuckled.

"I just want to make sure they're going to be alright; I've literally not been separated from Navarion since he's been born, nor from Anathil for the past sixty hours. I don't like the thought of being away for too long."

"That feeling is normal, but so is taking some time for yourself; that's part of why your mate's support is so beneficial," Raene said from the doorway. "And for the past three days, your only source of movement and exercise has been to walk across this hut. You need to stretch and walk for a bit, and dropping the linens off at the laundry hut down the road would do you some good. The bathhouse is right next door."

Sending both of their babies a sappy look, Cecilia slid to the edge of the bed but sat with her hands folded in her lap. "A hot shower does sound nice, as would a change of clothes. I don't know how I'll relax, though."

"I'm their daddy, I got this," Khujand chuckled while sprawling out longways on the bed next to the infants.

Hesitating only a few moments more, Cecilia turned to Raene. "Alright. If you can wait for just a minute, I'll collect all the dirty laundry here and walk with you. This is my first real walk since giving birth, so I wouldn't mind somebody going with me."

"It's for the best," Raene replied pleasantly while holding the door open and waiting. "The sooner you can become active again, the quicker your return to normal daily activity will be."

"I know...logically speaking, I know." Turning down to kiss both babies, Cecilia ran her fingers through two different colors of curly hair before leaving. "I'm going to miss you both so much. Mama's going to be back soon." Though Anathil was busy watching Khujand's fingers as he rubbed her belly, Navarion began to fuss the moment his mother left the bed. "Aw, poor baby! I'm coming back, just like you did when daddy took you for a walk!"

Khujand scooped the boy up in his free hand, bouncing Navarion against his thigh to distract their son's attention from Cecilia's departure. "Baby baby, woo woo," Khujand crooned, taking the tune of a famous dwarven drinking song and changing every single word to either 'baby' or 'woo.'

Taking the opportunity to slip away, Cecilia scooped up the dirty laundry and disappeared out the front door, leaning on Raene as she took her first steps outside in days. Even with his usual worrying about her wellbeing, the sense of serenity that Khujand felt as he held his daughter and son close couldn't be shattered. He played with them until Cecilia returned, completely losing track of the time as he watched how they both reacted to his movement.

Rolling over onto his back, he pulled both babies on top of him, stomach to stomach as they exercised their neck muscles to look at him. He had a family now, and not one that resulted from a forced arranged marriage. This time, he promised himself, he'd do things right when it came to raising children.

 **A/N: and so ends the first chapter. For obvious pacing reasons, this had to remain separate from the previous chapter even though it's kind of short.**

 **For those who were upset by the scenes of an infant almost dying, I'm sorry. Know that everything depicted previously is based on real life experiences; it was both an exorcism of an old pain as well as a difficult but very real pick me up for those dealing with serious illness affecting their young children. Please cherish your offspring, no matter how naughty they are sometimes. They are so fragile, and so easily lost, and nothing on this Earth hurts more than watching and not being able to help them.**

 **So ends the first part of this story, all set in the year 33, when Anathil and Navarion were born. Cecilia and Khujand plan their children carefully due to her age, waiting for three year gaps in between. The next two chapters take place in the year 36 on the Warcraft timeline.**


	7. Year 36, part 1

**A/N: this chapter and the next one take place in the year 36 on the Warcraft timeline (there are still twelve chapters total).**

Cecilia sat on the pile of cushions and pillows in the center of the bottom floor, watching her brother in law prepare her what she called a strawberry and cheese salad. Her cravings had grown even more erratic during her second pregnancy, fluctuating in tandem with her moods. As overjoyed as she'd been when she and Khujand learned they would be having twins, she didn't enjoy the near total lack of energy. Even during the first pregnancy, she'd slept most of the day and grew tired just from walking up and down the stairs. Now that she was bringing two new lives into the world, she had resorted to asking for assistance to stand up and sit down. Once she'd reached the final month of her pregnancy (she'd arrived in Astranaar two months early this time), she'd eaten crow and started to ask her husband for assistance when she walked more than a few steps. For a person used to riding sabres for days on end, the lack of independence was maddening.

That is, of course, when she wasn't falling asleep.

"Um...Cecilia?"

"Hmm, yes, I see...huh?"

She woke up before she even realized that she'd fallen asleep again, seeing her brother in law offering her the unique salad. As if her family couldn't be an odd enough band of snowflakes, Johan was a human, about as different a choice in husband as possible from Khujand. Always the most generous member of their patchwork clan, he'd taken it upon himself to display a sort of hospitality toward guests that even the local night elves there in Astranaar found to be impressive.

"Oh...right, right. Thank you so much...this is just what I...needed."

Immediately, she dug in to the salad, using her bare hands like her husband did due to her hunger. She never felt able to eat enough, and the way her cravings switched around so much, she would often need to eat quickly lest her palette suddenly change its own seemingly sentient mind about what it wanted. Although she finished rather quickly, she felt like she wanted to sleep again the moment that her wooden bowl was empty, and she had to fight to stay awake.

Johan took the bowl and began rinsing it off, ever one step ahead of his guests when it came to making everybody feel comfortable at home. A measure of almost silly guilt struck her despite the fact that he was as much a member of the family as everyone else.

"You've really gone...above and beyond...this time," she panted, unable to speak for too long due to the intense pressure that two unborn children - a girl and a boy, keep their family balanced - exerted on her lungs and diaphragm. "I mean...your kids, ours, uncle Eli, our friend Anushka...this is a crowded...house."

"Oh, it's nothing really, sis," he replied in his crisp, unaccented Darnassian, never one to think twice before helping. "Besides, Corra and little Eli are just fine helping big Eli around the house, and your friend seems fine watching Thanil and Navarion. Or perhaps the other way around."

His wry smile wasn't lost on Cecilia; her draenei friend Anushka was a bit immature, though that's part of why the children loved to be babysat by her so much. "Well, she's quite taken by the hospitality you and Uni have shown. She's almost too shy to tell you herself."

"Anushka is wonderful, and great with all four kids. She's also the only one who can get that cantankerous gnome who lives behind the teabag bagging workshop to crawl out of the literal rock that he literally lives under."

Memories of the two foot tall man in a pointy hat who once singlehandedly chased Omen back during last Lunar Festival simply by being so damn cantankerous caused Cecilia to smile. "Yes, Anushka is often able...to bring out the best in people," she replied, finding the energy to laugh heartily.

Before they could talk for much longer, a shock of jade hair poked through the tarp covering the back doorway of the treehouse. Waddling inside with a handmedown onesie with the Zandali word 'e'chuta' plastered on the front was Anathil, dressed for bed even though she'd woken up only a few hours before.

"There's my little girl!" Cecilia said while holding her arms out for the toddler, though her eyebrow raised when Anathil held back at first.

"I pooped," the girl said nonchalantly, as if she were merely reporting the weather outside.

Cecilia's jaw dropped open and she cupped both of her cheeks in mock surprise. "You pooped?" she asked in an exaggerated tone that made Johan laugh.

"I pooped my pants."

"You pooped your pants?!"

"I popped my pants and go thhhhbbbtttt."

Nearly doubling over in laughter, Johan took his niece by the hand. "I'll take care of it, Cecilia. You just sit tight; everybody should be back from the green grocer soon enough." He then took Anathil by the hand and led her toward the front door and onto the ramp that wound around the treehouse's trunk and up to the upper levels of the house.

Before Anathil dropped out of sight, Cecilia blew her daughter a kiss that went unreturned. Though Anathil bore little shyness in asking to be changed, the toddler felt uncomfortable being hugged or kissed whenever her diaper was soiled. Laughing herself into half sleep, Cecilia was roused again by the sound of hooves and small feet also entering from the back door.

"Hallaw," Navarion chirped as he came inside and jumped on Cecilia, sending her into a panic when he almost landed on her baby bump.

"Navarion, be careful! Your new sister and brother are in there!" she exclaimed while catching the boy at the last second. Being half troll, he developed more quickly than Anathil, and was not only potty trained but also much more mobile at three years old.

Stumbling in behind him was Anushka, her thirty something draenei friend with a maturity level not much further beyond Navarion's. Her blue skin marked in crayon and her guild tabard stained in apricot jam (her guild had only one other member, Cecilia's best friend Irien), the ditzy draenei looked as tired as Cecilia felt after only a few minutes alone watching the two younger children of the family in the backyard. Regardless, she still beamed happily as she flopped down on the cushions next to Cecilia.

"Much drawings...so apricot," Anushka mumbled, her Low Common still not entirely fluent after more than a decade of practice.

"Wow," Cecilia replied while mustering the strength to wrestle Navarion with one hand.

The feisty toddler jabbered away as he resisted Cecilia's tickling. "Mama, Anushka ated the jam and she ated it, and when she ated it she ated it with her nose."

"Laughings too many! Like milk because it was comings so fast!"

"And she ated it with her nose and it came out of her nose."

"Really?" Cecilia asked as if it was the most fascinating tidbit of information she'd ever heard, causing Anushka to fall into a laughing fit at how well she could exaggerate her voice.

"Yeah and it came out of her nose and then she ated it through her mouth the second time."

"Noooo!" Anushka cackled while covering her face in embarrassment.

She couldn't escape Cecilia's legitimately shocked stare. "Oh...my...goddess, Anushka, what...the...?" she asked, this time pausing due to disbelief rather than fatigue.

"Because I wasn't wantings to wastings of the foodings!"

Familiar heavy footsteps creaked on the ramp outside, signaling the return of the rest of the family. Thrilled to finally be in a house full of a large number of people in ten millennia, Cecilia grinned as she saw her sister lead their uncle inside. Her niece and nephew filed in behind them, clutching burlap bags of fresh meat for their mother.

"Ishnu alah," she said to the whole group as they walked over to the part of the first floor that served as the kitchen.

"Ishnu dal dieb," Unelia replied while leading their uncle so he didn't bump into the counter.

"Ishnu alah, uncle Eli!" Cecilia tried to tell the man a second time.

Older than even Unelia by a thousand years, Elindir I had been more heavily affected by the loss of immortality. In addition to having lost his sight, he'd also started losing his memory. Nobody ever talked about it, but the symptoms had started to become more severe by the time Cecilia and her family had arrived from Ratchet almost two months ago. His tendency to repeat himself had increased, and during his worst episodes, he'd forget the topic of a conversation in mid sentence and simply start talking about something else. While he had once been able to sense everything around him like a blindfolded monk, on that particular day he didn't even seem aware that Cecilia was there.

"Ishnu alah, uncle!" she repeated, trying her best to sound cheery even as her sister's movements while storing the groceries in the kitchen became a bit more rapid and nervous. "Hi, uncle!"

Elindir I just leaned on his staff and laughed as Elindir II tried to crawl in between his legs to drag an envelope of packed meat into the kitchen, unaware that he was being addressed. Unelia grew uncomfortable and intervened. "Uncle, Isurith is here," she said, using Cecilia's birth name.

The old man's indigo eyebrows pricked up. "Oh...Isurith, when did you arrive?" he asked jovially while facing the sink.

Forcing herself to smile in front of the children, Cecilia tried to play it off. "Oh...a while, I suppose. We're going to leave for sister Wolfrunner's compound tomorrow."

Behind his sunglasses, the older Elindir's amber eyes flickered. "Good, good! It's about time we had some more additions to the family," he replied, and Cecilia began to wonder if he'd forgotten Anathil and Navarion's names again.

Before either of them could continue, Unelia clapped her hands at her own two children to grab their attention. "Come on kids, we need to put the food away. Mutton chops aren't toys."

Corrianna and Elindir II promptly set down the bags and ran over to Navarion, who appeared unhappy about the arrival of the other children. "My Anushka!" he whined while trying to stop the ditzy draenei from hugging his cousins.

"I'm belong for everyperson," Anushka chuckled while unsuccessfully trying to get up each time Navarion tried to push her down on the cushions.

Corrianna, a young teenager who looked like a dark skinned human with glowing eyes, tried to move around her rambunctious cousin. "Anushka, the Muffin Makers are having a guild bake sale down by the chess parlor-"

"I'm thereings!" the draenei sputtered in her own personal dialect of Common while tripping over her own feet.

"Mm...try to bring some of...those back...will you?" Cecilia asked with a warm, satisfied smile. "For a raiding guild, they sure do know how to make a good muffin."

His young mind coming to realize that the tide has turned against him, Navarion scrambled to find his toddler shoes. "Wait, I will ate a muffin!" he shouted angrily as his cousins and Anushka walked toward the front doorway ahead of him. The party of four all left, Navarion's shoes on his hands, in anticipation of raiding the bake sale on Drury Lane.

Smiling as she pulled herself into an almost sitting position, Cecilia watched the group of three children and one child trapped in an adult's body until they'd left. By then, her sister and uncle had already finished putting the food into the cold storage unit grown into the floor and sealed it away. Ever one to claim his independence, Elindir I started to walk away on his own, sending Unelia into a mild panic.

"Uncle Eli, where are you going?" she asked urgently as he started to walk toward the back door.

Not realizing how worried she was, he continued walking on his own until she caught up to him and held his hand. "Well, if we're to eat lamb chops later, then I'll need to check on the broccoli I conjured in the backyard," he chuckled as if it wasn't a big deal.

For the family, it was a very big deal due to his accident five weeks ago. In the past, he'd been able to hike all the way from the city of Astranaar to the surrounding villages unassisted, his memory and his sense of hearing serving him well. That time had passed, however; while walking up the ramp to the third story of the house five weeks ago, he'd tripped against the safety railing and tumbled down the ramp to the second story. He'd only suffered bruises that he immediately healed, but that still worried the rest of the family when they thought of how much worse it could have been.

"That's a wonderful idea. Why don't I go and check with you!" Unelia said, her voice evening out but her expression still nervous as they walked outside.

Cecilia frowned for a bit. Since she and Khujand lived so far away in the Barrens, it was Unelia and Johan who'd taken it upon themselves to care for the eldest member of the family once they all left Serenity Grove, her ancestral village there in Ashenvale. For night elves, such a decision was never even questioned nor one they needed to think about, even for one second; family came first. Regardless, Cecilia recognized the extra effort Unelia expended both caring for their uncle and retaining her composure as his health deteriorated. In an ideal world, she'd be able to see him more than twice a year during her family's biannual visits to the city where a large number of their former neighbors from Serenity had settled. Experience had taught her, though, that the world was far from ideal.

That thought was apparently her last before slipping into unconsciousness again, because the next thing she knew, her husband was sitting next to her.

"Mm...is dinner ready?" she asked, noticing how dry her mouth was and shocked by how smoothly and comfortably she'd fallen asleep.

Khujand chuckled deep in his throat and brushed her hair away from her face. "Not quite...but I brought ya some off tha muffins. All tha kids got distracted by a pet battle between two armored armadios." He handed her the muffin as she ate and giggled at his accent. Apparently 'armadios' meant 'armadillos,' and even after five years of marriage, she still struggled to decipher his accent sometimes.

"Oh, honey, thank you so much!" she replied with a mouthful of food, no longer caring about table manners when he was the only person around. She even bit her tongue in her rush to scarf down the muffins, unfazed by the entertainment her drew from her ravenous devouring.

Brushing the crumbs off of her cushions and blankets in the sitting area of the home, he gained a rather excited look in his eye. "So, Cici...ya know, since we got twins this time, I've been so worried about ya mobility and all, and how we're gonna reach tha compound."

"Mm hmm."

"Well, I found a solution," he said with a cheeky grin. "Tamarrow, I arranged for tha flightmistress ta give us a chimaera."

Cecilia nearly choked on her muffin. "A what!" she replied, her voice muffled by the muffins.

"Ya, I know, right?" he replied, unaware that she wasn't as impressed by the idea as he was. "It's got two heads and everythin'! They don't usually rent those things out, but I told them ya situation, and we took measurements. It's this real big mofo, too, so it's not gonna have any problems carry in' ya, me and our bags."

She facepalmed. "Khujand..."

"Wha, it's great! They let me pet it ta make sure that it wouldn't reject me either, it's as gentle as our faerie dragons, except the size of an actual dragon. Plus...if ya ride on somethin' this stable, right next ta me, I'm not gonna worry aboushyu."

Splaying her fingers and peeking out at him, she studied the hopeful look in his eyes. Both of their unborn children kicked as if to pile on the pressure, and she reviewed in her head all the times he'd freaked out during the flight - and constant stops at every single waystation - from Ratchet to Astranaar. Truthfully, riding a mount didn't affect her nearly sapped energy levels, especially a flying mount; she had an easier time riding from the Crossroads to Raynewood Retreat than she did walking up half a flight of stairs. As often happened, however, she made the decision more for his peace of mind than her own actual safety.

"Alright, we'll ride the chimaera," she sighed, much to his excitement. "Just remember that this is a war beast, technically, and not a mount. If it becomes too ornery, then we're flying back to Astranaar to take hippogriffs."

"Ya'are not gonna be disappointed, dear, I promise," he replied while kissing her between the eyes. Then he kissed her in the bridge of the nose, then on her upper lip-

"Hey mmph amumph, I'm suppose to be giving birth in less than two weeks!"

Khujand chucked and pulled her to sit in his lap instead. Drowsiness still pulled at her eyelids, and even being moved by her burly husband somehow made her feel even more tired. "That was just a goldfish kiss."

Both of the twins became more active as she sat in her husband's lap, as if they knew he was there. Cecilia placed a hand on her stomach to feel how much stronger they'd become, grinning as she wondered what they would look like. Despite her more intense back pains this time, despite the more extreme edema in her feet, despite the more worrying spikes in her blood sugar level, she felt all this was worth it. This was her family; this was what she'd waited twelve thousand years for.


	8. Year 36, part 2

**A/N: for pacing reasons, I ultimately made the decision not to include the actual birth in this chapter. It wasn't an easy choice, but my conclusion was that the story would be better served by what comes after. I hope this provides for a smoother read.**

"I feel like I can breathe again."

Khujand watched Cecilia nurse both newborns as she spoke, amazed at how the mushy feeling inside didn't diminish the second time they brought children into the world (technically the fourth time for him). Just like her, he became obsessed with continuously feeling their soft indigo baby hair and the folded over ears that made him want to squeal like a big, 500 pound girl.

As if demonstrating the drastic physical change that had occurred in the single night since she'd given birth, Cecilia breathed deeply, her midsection visibly smaller after both of the twins had come into the world. She still hadn't risen from the bed since that time, though how she could sit, eat and nurse for that long without going to the bathroom, Khujand would never know (nor ever ask). Always the devoted mother and dauntless soldier, Cecilia appeared content to lay in the bed and allow Khujand to wait on her hand and foot, something she'd normally feel too embarrassed to do.

"Do ya think ya'are gonna be able ta walk taday?" he asked cautiously while accepting their new boy for burping.

"To be honest, I'll need to whether assisted or not; I really need to use the bathroom soon," she replied, causing him to hide his smile at his suspicion being confirmed. "But I'm not in the mood to go for a regular walk or anything."

Once she'd buttoned up her new maternity gown, she took her time burping their new girl and sniffing her scalp. "I almost forgot what babies smell like," she cooed while settling against her pillow mountain.

Once their son had burped, the boy fell asleep almost immediately, and Khujand laid down next to Cecilia while holding him. "Ya know, Cici...we were talkin' about naming our kids after our parents a while back," he said, broaching the topic indirectly out of her openness about wanting to pick the names.

Cecilia gave both children thoughtful looks. "Yes, we planned that way back in Durotar. I guess we missed out the first time around." After a few moments spent mulling it over, she looked up at him. "We're not finished, right?" she asked almost worriedly.

The way her eye twinkled with a sense of wonderment caused his lips to curl into a sappy smile. Never had he dreamed of being able to raise such a big, stable, and most importantly, _civilian_ family like this. "As long as ya feel comfortable havin' more, then we're gonna have more," he replied.

His sappy expression infected her quickly, and she flashed her perfectly white teeth - plus that single gold tooth replacing the original that she'd lost in battle - while allowing their new daughter to frantically try and suck on her finger. Giggling at the way the girl's head rotated this way and that in order to latch on to anything, Cecilia took her time considering it.

"Why make things complicated?" she asked rhetorically. "I'm holding her, you're holding him; so she'll take my mom's name, he'll take your dad's."

Their son was much more subdued, and Khujand lifted the boy closer to get a look at the still closed eyes. "So this is Zengu, then...Zengu and Issinia. I like tha sound of it." Their son became slightly more active at the sound of the name, causing Khujand to chuckle again. "It's been many years since I said my old man's name out loud."

"Same for me and my mom...hi Issinia," Cecilia whispered to their daughter. Upon hearing the name, the girl's movements suddenly slowed down, and her eyelids opened halfway. Bright, silver light far more powerful than what was considered normal shone out, nearly causing Cecilia to blink. "Oh my, I think we have a little priestess on our hands!"

"Is that what tha glow means?"

"Not really...it's probably just a superstition. But it's self confirming; girls born with that extra power are usually pushed into the Sisterhood of Elune even if they'd rather train to do something else."

Their conversation was interrupted - not unpleasantly - by the familiar knock of Ayleah on the door. "Hello, it's me, Ayleah!" the still relatively young elf chirped from the other side of the door.

"Come on in, the twins just finished eating!"

Pressing the door open, the volunteer they'd gotten to know well over the years entered with Ardoren in tow. As if complementing his young counterparts more upbeat demeanor, Ardoren was as cordial but calm as always, bowing silently in greeting. He trailed behind, leaving Ayleah to step over to the edge of the bed, being closer to the couple and almost a friend, if one whom they saw only once a few years ago.

"Are you guys alright? Do you need anything before we take a look at these two bundles here?" the volunteer asked as Khujand took Issina and slid her and her brother in front of Ayleah.

"No, they haven't given us any special gifts while burping yet," Cecilia laughed, "but I really need to use the bathroom soon, and I'm not sure if I'll be ready to walk all the way to the latrine by myself."

"If mister Hearthglen doesn't mind, then I'll take you once we give the twins a quick checkup."

"Ya, no problem. These kids are so quiet, they're plenty easy ta handle."

"Good, great to hear. Ardoren?"

"Of course. What's her name?" the druid asked while carefully taking up their daughter in his arms.

"She's Issinia, named after my mom."

"That's lovely," Ayleah said while scooping up Zengu.

"Yes...Issinia hear is clear of any illnesses or disturbances." Ardoren laid the girl back down on the bed before reaching to take the boy from Ayleah. "And who is he?"

"Zengu, named after my daddy."

"Careful, he's a chunky one!" Ayleah said. She almost had difficulty due to the boy's weight, and quickly handed him over to Ardoren.

"Alright, let's take a look here...hmm."

Flashbacks of Anathil's illness at the compound caused Khujand's heart rate to immediately increase. "What's it?"

Shaking his head as if to dispel any fears, Ardoren laid the big baby back down onto the bed. "His eyes are amber. They're still closed, but I can sense it. This boy is gifted."

Pride visibly swelled up in Cecilia's chest. "Aww...a priestess and a druid form one litter, I hope," she cooed while feeling the folded over ears of both babies again.

"If you don't mind, sister, could Ardoren take a look at you before I help you outside?" Ayleah asked while playing with both babies' fat feet.

"Not at all. Let me just...ah...scoot up a little closer." Cecilia pushed off from the wall with her hands, though she winced at the effort, probably due to her back pain. Once near the edge of the bed, Ardoren held his palms near her temples.

"This will only take a second," the old druid said as his hands began to glow green.

Moving them around so he could feel Cecilia's aura from her head down to her stomach, Ardoren focused for longer than usual as he moved lower down. He stopped when he reached her midsection, rotating his hands carefully so as not to touch her but to thoroughly inspect her level of energy and general health. The way he spent extra time checking her stomach and back caused Khujand to start worrying again.

When he pulled away from her, there was a look of concern on his face. Cecilia remained visibly calm, but inside, Khujand could feel her worry; even if he no longer went on adventures or quests, voodoo didn't simply disappear, and he was perfectly attuned to the apprehension that she felt.

"Is anything the matter?" she asked nonchalantly.

Awkward as if he was a physician breaking bad news, Adroren put his hands on his hips and looked at his sandals. "Unfortunately," he replied, vague to the point where Khujand wanted to just beg the man for the bottom line. "Sister Hearthglen, I've already reviewed your general health with you when you arrived two weeks ago-"

"Mm hmm," she replied, nearly cutting him off. It wasn't like Cecilia to constantly hum, nod or say anything at all during conversation; she was never the type who felt the need to confirm that she did or didn't hear something. Her behavior came off as normal to the volunteer and the druid, but Khujand knew it was borne out of nervousness.

"And so you're well aware that you are, medically speaking, diabetic."

"Of course."

"It seems to be part of your body's reaction to pregnancy late in life; in a matter of weeks, your blood sugar levels will likely return to normal."

"Excellent."

"Though the disturbance in that disc in your back will likely remain a nuisance for life."

"It happens."

"As will the scar tissue in your left ankle."

"I can manage."

"And the tear in your right meniscus-"

"That's fine."

Ardoren paused, pursing his lips as if indignant at being interrupted but afraid that Cecilia would take his head off if he showed it. "What I mean, sister Hearthglen, is that pregnancy with twins has severely taxed your health, and you're past the point of natural recovery due to our mortality."

"It comes with the territory."

"And if you continue having your husband heal you every time you feel an ache or a pain, then the magic will gradually have less and less of an effect, as the buildup of tolerance is natural even without training for an anti magic shell."

"That's life."

"No, sister, that's..." He paused when Cecilia didn't budge nor shift her facial expression even slightly, and Khujand could sense the wall of tension that Ardoren didn't even realize could crash down onto his head at any moment. "Please. Sister Hearthglen, I'm trying to impart serious information about your medical condition-"

"Elune be with you."

"Yes, well, Elune bless us all-"

"Well, it's about time I hit the old latrine," Cecilia said while reaching for Ayleah to help her stand up. Khujand's entire body felt tense as helplessness overwhelmed him; his wife wanted nothing more than to leave, yet he knew that she had to stay and listen to what they'd both feared.

"Wait, please wait," Ardoren said, finally gaining the courage to hold up his hand as if asking for a time out. Cecilia's smile was tempered by her hard glare, giving him pause as he seemed to reconsider what he was about to tell her. "Sister Hearthglen...there's no avoiding the inevitable."

"Ayleah, I need to go to the bathroom," Cecilia said, completely ignoring the druid and causing Khujand's old social awkwardness to rear its ugly head as he just stroked their twins' curly hair, wishing he could turn invisible until his wife had at least listened to the news that he'd finally started to comprehend.

The volunteer looked even more uncomfortable than Khujand felt, the young (less than a hundred years old) elf unsure of how to react. "Oh...well, Cecilia-"

"Just allow me to deliver your diagnosis, that's all I ask," Ardoren said while pressing his palms together in a sort of namaste motion, as if requesting a great favor from Cecilia. "I'm oath bound to inform you of my findings; please let me tell you, and I'll go."

The air felt thick and heavy as Cecilia stared at her still swollen feet, her lips pressed into a hard line as she refused to look up at her caregiver. Although Khujand himself could cleanse and heal, he wasn't a pure healer, and lacked the professional knowledge to properly diagnose anyone, much less his wife. He could feel the steeliness in Cecilia receding only because she was still exhausted after the long pregnancy in which she brought two new lives into the world at one time. Her energy sapped, she listened when Khujand knew that she normally would have shown the druid to the door.

"Okay," Cecilia replied, a hard edge to her voice that caused Ardoren to hesitate.

The old druid took a deep breath. "As a healer sworn to preserve life in all its forms, I cannot, in good conscience, advise you to even think of another pregnancy. The risks to your wellbeing are too great. If you're interested in a second adoption-"

"Adoption requires bonding, bonding for me equals nursing my baby, nursing can only happen during lactation, I'll only lactate after giving birth," she replied tersely. "I'll adopt again; it's a noble effort and I love Anathil dearly, but it needs to come during my next birthing, just like Anathil came to us at the same time as Navarion. Ayleah, I need to use the bathroom."

Ardoren watched quietly as the poor volunteer, almost blushing from her discomfort, helped Cecilia into a standing position. "Sister Hearthglen...I can't emphasize this enough: you will endanger yourself by putting your body through another pregnancy. Now, we grow a number of herbs here that can assist with birth control and family planning-"

"We have herbs. The business my husband and I run is herbalism, and we ship the best quality internationally from the port of Ratchet - I know about herbs!"

"I'm sorry," Ardoren said while bowing again.

"I know what contraception is and I don't need to be lectured."

"I'm sorry, I'll just take my leave, then."

"Thank you for your time, brother," she said while continuing to stare at her feet, not even noticing that Ardoren had already exited for fear of upsetting a mother recovering from a recent birthing.

A thousand and one ideas of what to say floated through Khujand's mind, but the spirits told him better than to say them out loud. Resigning him to the feeling of helplessness, he just held as motionless as possible until she left, knowing that anything he could possibly say would only lead to her becoming more defensive; in five years of marriage, they'd never once truly fought and had always supported each other, and for him to change that - now, of all times - wouldn't be fair.

Waiting until Ayleah helped her walk outside, he stopped holding his breath and looked down at the two twin babies staring up at him in awe. Even Zengu, whose eyes hadn't opened at all, seemed to follow Khujand's movements; Issinia opened one eye every so often to flash that blinding silver light at him again.

"Mama's stressed out, kids," he sighed deeply, giving them baby massages the way Cecilia had taught him to. "But that's got nothin' ta do with ya. She's gonna come back from tha bathroom happy and ready ta play. Donshyu worry about anythin'."


	9. Year 39, part 1

**A/N: we're now in the third part of this story, which is set in the year 39 for this and the two chapters after it. This is where the previous threads all come together before the epilogue - this story is both to show the story of an interracial family and pregnancy late in life, and also to sort of tie the threads of the Hearthglen family together. Lightning will crash very soon.**

Cecilia paced herself as she and Raene walked in the early evening, not wanting to tire herself out when she knew that Khujand was already functioning on minimal rest. As it was, Raene had been willing to give up her usual evening jog to go for a walk with Cecilia instead. Considering the fact that the founder of the birthing compound must have known that the walk would turn into an impromptu pep talk session, it was quite gracious of her. White pebbles crunched beneath Cecilia's squishy maternity flip flops as they walked setting her slightly on edge as she found herself perpetually worried about her sense of balance due to the aches and pains in her back, knees and ankles that she'd finally stopped concealing from her husband. He might be a healer, technically, but he was so emotional about the issue of her health that he wasn't able to objectively check her bodily condition in order to measure her honesty about the difficulty she was feeling this time around.

She and Raene turned a corner among the vast rows of birthing huts, turning toward the cul de sac used for housing all the volunteers. As they approached one of the saddest, most difficult workstations for those who offered their hands and their time to the compound, the two of them went over the latest book Raene had sent to Cecilia about late life pregnancy.

"So as I was saying, it's a proven fact that pregnancy during the process of menopause helps to mitigate the hormonal changes. So from the perspective of the change in your body right now, you couldn't have chosen a better time to conceive. You're likely feeling very little of the difficulties most women due during this period of their lives."

"I've felt very little changing in me, actually," Cecilia replied. "And once I give birth, I suppose that I'll recover into my new, post menopausal self, and not necessarily notice all of the changes?"

"More research still needs to be done on our people; after all, many of us who are older simply didn't regain fertility after losing immortality, and of those who did regain it, few have gone through menopause yet. Let's just say that you'll have an easier time; talking about specifics will be difficult."

"Ah...I see," Cecilia responded as they continued to walk.

Raene seemed to sense her apprehension, and broke most of her personal unspoken rules by actually touching Cecilia on the arm. "Hey...don't worry, okay? It's a natural part of the life cycle, and everybody goes through it eventually - that is, if they ever know what it's life to be fertile again," she laughed lightly, tossing out an ironic joke that wasn't lost on Cecilia.

"Elune has plans for us all," she chuckled, feeling her unborn child kick again. She paused for a good amount of time after that, wanting to savor the feeling for what would be the last time. When her daughter laid at rest after that, her mind wandered to the pinch she felt in her lower back with every step she took. "Do you think that Ardoren was just being cautious when he advised me against bringing another child into the world last time?"

Never one to mollycoddle anyone other than a baby or toddler, Raene shook her head without hesitation. "No, I don't. He's not the best communicator, but he takes his job very seriously. I have no doubts that he advised you against another pregnancy because he truly worried it would endanger your health."

Faced with testimony from someone she deeply trusted, Cecilia found herself unable to hide from the reality before her - especially after a pregnancy that had been even more difficult for her than the twins. "I see..."

"But don't focus on that for now; you can't. You made a personal choice, and we respect what's taken place. I know full well how bitter a pill to swallow is the prospect of not raising the family you want. We're here, we're with you, and we're going to get through this. The compound is busy as usual, but I'll have Ayleah and Lurella on rotation monitoring you - if you feel the time for birthing has arrived, then one of them will inform me and I'll make sure that I'm there for you personally."

"I'd tell you that you don't have to do that...but I actually really want you to do that," she chortled as they found themselves only halfway toward their destination.

The lodge in question lacked the sharp arches of a huntress hall, bearing fertility runes on the front that belied the difficult job performed within. Her energy waning already, Cecilia spied a bench just off the beaten path, between a storage hut and the volunteers' bathhouse. "Could see sit down for a minute, by the way?" she panted, the soles of her feet pleading for rest again.

"Hmm? Yes, certainly; I believe that your mate is already there with Ardoren, so taking a break now would give them a chance to...acclimate to the environment in there."

The two of them stepped off the trail and into the miniature garden that surrounded the bench, taking a breather that Cecilia desperately needed and allowing them both to reflect for a few moments. Though a few volunteers walked by, as did a young sentinel who'd been assigned to patrol the compound, nobody paid them any mind. If there was one exceptionally outstanding benefit of being in a place that was almost sacred to their people, it was the great respect for privacy that everyone held. There were uncountable benefits, of course, but that was a very tangible one.

Cecilia held up her hands, measuring the lines over her palms as she rested. Even after sixteen hours of sleep, she still felt as if all her energy had left her, and that was an entirely separate issue from all of her aches and pains. It was uncanny how little she accomplished during each day, and how little time she had to lament over her own lethargy. Counting the lines on her palms, she tried to guesstimate how many were ancient and how many were recent. It was amazing, how her hands didn't look that different from Ayleah's, despite her favorite volunteer's relative youth. Amazing...over twelve thousand years, something so personal as the lines on her hands had gone unnoticed to her; she didn't even know whether or not they'd changed over time.

"Unelia sent word about your uncle."

Spending a few seconds before she'd fully pulled herself out of her stupor, Cecilia blinked her eyes a few times before Raene's words had fully registered in her mind. "Hmm?"

"I said, your sister wrote to me about your uncle's situation. That was just after you'd arrived in Astranaar."

Confused but by no means bothered by Raene's rare foray into personal topics, Cecilia tried to stave off the looming sorrow she kept locked away. "Worse. His consciousness dips in and out, not always in concurrence with his sleep patterns. My niece started to feed him just before we arrived here. Khujand went alone to tell him goodbye before we left...he really insisted on being alone, and I could see that he'd shed tears when he came downstairs. I think it was...Goodbye. Capitalized."

For a good few moments afterward, Raene remained silent, her emotions mostly concealed as usual. "Thats troubling...but it will happen to all of us. As long as he's surrounded by family, that's most important."

"I agree totally...we all have to face it sooner or later," Cecilia replied, her mind nearly wandering. The rarity unfolding before her, however, gave her pause. Raene was always so objective, so focused on her work, that she rarely let any details slip. When they'd known each other during the Long Vigil, their interactions had always been very formal; consequently, she'd known the woman for millennia but knew next to nothing about her.

Curious, she decided that after six years of a working relationship regarding her own family, she'd grown close enough to the world's leading expert on Kaldorei prenatal and pediatric care to respond to the personal inquiry in kind.

"Raene...it would be fair to say that it's my turn now, correct?"

From her peripheral vision, Raene glanced over to Cecilia, the faintest hint of a smile pulling at her lips. For two beings as old as them, nearly no explanation was needed; they had enough context to read between lines that others didn't even see. "It's been an eon since it's been anybody's turn, to be honest," she replied in a tone that was both wry yet reserved, like a person not bringing her walls down so much as letting the gate slide open a crack. "May Elune grant you mercy."

"Amen...you have nothing to fear in that regard," Cecilia chortled, wondering to herself if Raene was exceptionally closed off or if she'd just allowed herself to become rather open since living outside of the forest. "But you knew it would come to this."

"I suppose I did, in the back of my mind." Cautiously, she turned her head toward Cecilia without making eye contact. "You're asking about a mate, or about offspring?"

"Have I not earned the right to a twofold question?" she asked cheekily.

Almost falling for what would be considered light humor between them, Raene nearly let her teeth show. "What...oh, I feel the envelope being pushed!"

"More like slightly nudged!"

"Alright...alright," Raene sighed. A part of her almost seemed relieved, as if talking about herself wasn't the problem so much as finding someone considered a peer to talk about it to. "One husband, two children, all lost during the War of the Ancients."

When Raene paused, Cecilia felt perplexed, knowing from the woman's expression that she wasn't upset or triggered. "There isn't more to it?"

Breathing deeply, the compound founder looked up to the stars and appeared to honestly consider the question. "No...honestly, no. I've had ten millennia to think it over, and no. I was stationed at Astranaar most of the period, one of our people's few true cities, even if I did spend a few decades here or there at other positions. Ours was one of the few locations where men would regularly wake up from the Emerald Dream and mingle...had I desired remarriage, I could have made that happen. My solitude was a conscious choice."

She reached back and tucked a stray strand of hair into the loose plait she'd tied it in for jogging, falling into deep thought again for a few seconds. Cecilia wasn't one to delude herself about the feelings of those she considered friends; had Raene been upset, she'd have noticed. But she knew that even if the topic was of a highly personal nature, and one the woman kept to herself, that Raene almost seemed to loosen up a bit after having found someone she could comfortably discuss her past with.

"It wasn't loyalty; you know how common it was for widows and widowers to remarry after wartime. I didn't think it wrong to find someone else...but after more than a millennia of actually blissful union, I didn't feel the want or need. The huntress lodge became my life, and it wasn't a substitute, nor is the compound. We all leave our mark on the world, a small part of ourselves that remains. For many, their mark is a family to carry on their name; mine is helping to facilitate that."

Cecilia watched her for a while, just to ensure that she hadn't made her friend uncomfortable in any way. When she was certain, she forced herself to stand up.

"Thank you for telling me," she grunted and then chuckled at her own difficulty standing. "Before we enter the orphanage, there's one last thing I'd like to ask. Perhaps it's a bit off color, but it's something I can promise won't be asked of you again."

This time, Raene didn't realize what Cecilia was asking of her at first. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, then in suspicion, then in incredulity. "I...well, I suppose that it is off color. But, I suppose we've moved beyon no the point of a simply bow." She stood up, staring at Cecilia and almost laughing at her own hesitation. "I trust that this will remain confidential."

"Always," Cecilia replied while holding her hands out.

Raene hesitated a second more and then gave Cecilia a stiff hug. It most certainly wasn't the compound founder's habit at any point in her life, and she appeared uncertain of how long to hold on or where to put her arms, but their awkward hug felt pleasant nonetheless.

Cecilia let go first, causing Raene to back up as if the birthing expert had been squeezing hot coals in her hand. They both shared a laugh, more comfortably from Cecilia's side, and turned back toward the orphanage.

After an inordinate amount of time spent walking the relatively short distance, Cecilia gratefully let out a little hoot when they arrived on the soft looking lodge's doorstep. "Are you sure you're ready to enter?" Raene asked, a measure of concern in her voice. "Even long term volunteers such as Lurella experience difficulty in here."

Pausing before the entered, Cecilia considered the words for a moment. She'd been told that this was the last place any volunteer wanted to be sent to, and many of them never contacted Raene again after taking assignments caring for the orphans. Statistics about infant mortality among their people flashed through Cecilia's memory, and she felt a twinge of fear when remembering how hard it had been just to see Anathil, a single child, in her death throes.

A slight kick to Cecilia's stomach jolted her and then caused her to smile. Another fighter, this child would be. "I'm ready. This is the last daughter I'll ever have...we need to get her a 'twin' brother," she replied, trying to use humor to lighten her rapidly sinking mood.

Raene opened the door slowly and gave Cecilia a worried look over. "Consider yourself warned," she said before leading the two of them inside.

The interior of the building lacked the open atriums and big halls of a usual lodge; there was a single long hallway leading to the ramp at the back, and numerous doors led off to the sides. Cecilia's vision was immediately dominated by the sight of Ardoren attempting to console Khujand, who was seated on a bench in the hallway as if he'd been traumatized.

"Well, statistics are sometimes wrong," Ardoren said softly while giving Khujand a stiff, decidedly unsure pat on the back. "We've sent multiple children into the care of the Sisterhood and the Circle over the past few years, and all of them that make it that far are alive and well at their government halfway homes."

Unable to watch the old druid fail miserably at consoling her gentle giant of a husband, Cecilia walked over to the two men, shoulder to shoulder with Raene. "Hey honey, do you want to take a breather while I search for the child we're going to save?" she asked, getting the distinct feeling like she was trying to calm someone who'd just watch their family's sabre kitten get run over by a seige engine. Except times one hundred.

Continuing to stare at the wall, Khujand barely even reacted. "Thanks, hon," was all he mumbled.

"Why don't the two of us take a step into one of the wards," Raene said while pulling Cecilia away and leaving Ardoren to the task of distracting Khujand's mind from whatever he'd seen.

As they approached the first door, Cecilia could already hear crying voices of varying strengths. At first, she felt no sadness, since babies crying was normal at just about any nursery, and didn't necessarily mean that anything was wrong; crying was their only means of communication. When she entered the first ward, however, she did feel herself hesitate.

"There are...so many more volunteers here than everywhere else!" she gasped while counting the number of cradles that were so low to the ground that the volunteers had to sit.

Across the room were at least ten more proper looking volunteers, a mixed group of mostly older elves and some youngbloods tending to the needs of eleven newborns. At the bathhouses and dining huts in the compound, most of those working were fathers whose wives were asleep or any grown siblings or grandparents who were free at the time; Raene never left anybody to sit without work to do. These, however, appeared to be people who were experienced in childcare and had come to the compound explicitly to work; they even wore matching armbands with red crescent moons over a white background to signify themselves at specialists at the orphanage.

And...they were _overwhelmed_. More than a few of them looked like they hadn't changed their clothes in a few days, and a few volunteers of all ages, genders and backgrounds had streaks on their faces marking dried tears. Even from her vantage point, Cecilia could tell that at least half of the children were sick and one look jaundiced like Anathil had been during infancy, causing Cecilia to grimace.

"Trust me, they're better off here than in a hospital where the priestesses and druids know nothing of pediatrics," Raene whispered, as if reading Cecilia's thoughts.

"I...I have no...doubt," she replied, suddenly finding herself short of breath again despite having rested up outside. One newborn opened its mouth to cry silently, nearly triggering another flashback. "How...how can this be?"

A measure of resentment worked its way into Raene's features, rather than the sadness that Cecilia was experiencing. "Loss of parenting skills across millennia of immortality has led to a stunning lack of responsibility. At least once a month, someone will show up with their infant and then flee, assuming that since we help facilitate birth, we're also qualified and able to raise their children." Running her hands along a motivational poster for the volunteers that read 'ELUNE LOVES THE COMPASSIONATE,' Raene took a deep breath and tried to relax.

"We never planned on running an orphanage here. The few abandoned newborns who survived were typically taken home to the families of the volunteers, who nursed them until they could be handed over as wards of the state and directed toward programs for careers in the military or civil service - all of it free. But when word got around, the number of people, intentionally leaving their children here increased, like they were completely ignorant of the fact that children who are abandoned have the highest mortality rates."

Sadness finally replaced the resentment. "Half of the innocents you see here are unlikely to survive beyond their first month," she sighed. "We're aware of it, we do our best to save them, we do a better job than anybody else, but that doesn't make it any easier on our volunteers."

One man in particular looked fatigued as he rocked one cradle with his foot, held another baby in his arm and allowed a third to chew on the finger of his other hand. Cecilia noticed his bicep twitch as if his arm was giving out after holding on to the baby for so long. Torn between giving the deserving man relief and not getting herself lassoed in to volunteering in the last days of he last pregnancy, she resigned herself to whispering a silent prayer for a fresh volunteer to relieve the man soon. Raene certainly wouldn't be able to do anything, either; she was by far the most sought after person on the compound, even more so than the bathhouse attendant, and was likely wary of becoming sidetracked by tasks she was better off delegating to others.

Two younger women tended to a single newborn whose movements implied that the little girl was delerious from malnourishment, stabbing Cecilia in the heart. Chin tightened and upper lip stiff, Raene looked the two women mourning over a single infant up and down.

"Sister Crow, please relieve brother Brocius," she told one of the two young women, directing her to help the exhausted man handling three babies by himself.

"Yes, ma'am," the youngblood replied enthusiastically, her fatigue not overwhelming her yet as she took the baby from the man's strained arm.

After a few minutes of Raene observing and Cecilia trying not to run out of the room hyperventilating, the compound founder whispered to her again at their spot in the doorway. "We've never given up on a single life here; not one, single time," she said softly enough that the flustered volunteers wouldn't notice. "Even when we know one doesn't stand a chance, we don't play goddess; we provide care to all the children abandoned by their parents without discrimination. That being said...we often give advice to those with hearts pure enough to grant the gift of a family to these innocents."

"In regard to health condition?"

"General condition. No specifics; judgment isn't reserved for us here on Azeroth. But usually, we prefer that people with homes prepared to raise a child adopt someone whose outlook is good. In the long term, it's a more rational and even more ethical choice."

Cecilia's eyes honed in on the nearly still girl in the corner before she strained her neck to force herself to look elsewhere. What had occurred in the case of Anathil was a miracle; she couldn't count on being able to save another child from the brink again. Judging herself the whole way, she tried to think of a hundred thousand justifications for her actions as she scanned the room.

"I...I really don't know...I feel like...adoption is the right thing. But also that if I choose...to adopt one over the others...I'm doing something wrong."

Whether it was due to their hug outside or simply because Raene was that serious, she reached out and touched Cecilia's shoulder. " **Stop** ," she whispered in a quiet but firm voice. "Be objective. You can't nurse more than two, considering the level of lactation I observed from you in the past, and adopting one is better than adopting zero...if you're still willing," she continued like a sentinel troop commander advising Cecilia to evacuate only half the civilian's of a sinking ship. The pill was not only bitter but wide and painful to swallow, but very necessary.

"Okay...okay...okay...I'm not playing goddess."

"You're not."

"I'm...choosing who I take...no...I don't like to think...of it as choosing who has a home," Cecilia panted quietly, working hard to steel her nerve. "By the night, Raene, I don't know how you can do this."

"I spend more time here than I do inspecting individual huts, now. Even with eight as the average number of babies abandoned here at any given time, this takes up much of my time. I told you: we all leave a piece of ourselves in the world. This is a big piece of me, in this ward we'd never planned for or expected to begin with."

Using Raene's soft yet firm voice as an anchor, Cecilia tried to out her feelings aside and look at the situation objectively. "There are only three girls and eight boys," she observed out loud.

"Yes...that's discrimination, actually. You know it well: our people still prefer female children even after the class and profession system was supposedly equalized."

Noticing that all of the boys there had silver eyes symbolizing a lack of natural talent as druids (though many could learn wth extra study), Cecilia felt that resentment as well, and clung on to it. "Girls grow up into women and women were more visible in the society; the defenders, the huntresses, the adventurers, the runners. Most men just went to their dens, slept in the Dream and remained out of sight." She shook her head in disapproval. "But that time is over; we have plenty of male warriors and priests and female druids."

"Old prejudices die hard; most of those whom people leave here and run out on are boys, regardless of all the changes to our society in the last twenty years or so. Most adoptions are still of girls too, even if the families don't consciously decide to discriminate; they're still stuck in the mentality that a daughter will stay at the village and protect the community while a son will eventually just grow up, pass his trials and disappear." Leaning in closer, Raene suddenly spoke in a surprisingly curt manner. "Choose a boy."

"Ha! I was already planning to...since I'm currently pregnant with a girl," she replied. "We want to name her after Khujand's mom...and name a boy after my dad." Her eyes honed in on a boy who she could have sworn was looking at her, and Raene took notice before Cecilia had even sorted out her immediate reaction.

"He knows you're looking at him," Raene whispered.

A bulbous forehead and chubby cheeks surrounded a small mouth pulled in a straight line, as if the baby was bored from lack of stimulation. Yet there he was looking at her, probably not able to discern much detail yet but obviously aware that she wasn't a coat hanger.

"Raene...this is so hard! If I adopt him...I can't adopt the others-"

"Do you need me to make the choice for you?" Raene offered sarcastically.

Cecilia gave her a dead serious look. "Yes. I can't do this. Goddes light your path, always, but I can't walk out of here with one and leave the others," she replied, her ears drooping sheepishly at a display of weakness she would never had allowed herself to indulge in a few years prior. Civilian life truly had softened her.

Sighing in a way that made Cecilia feel guilty for burdening her friend emotionally, Raene nodded and smiled. "Don't give me that look; this gets easier in time." She gently nudged Cecilia back toward the door. "You go sit outside; I'll bring the bundle of joy to you once I reassign the boy's caretaker to another newborn."

Ears still drooping, Cecilia nodded and moved toward the hallway. "I'd say I owe you another one, but...well, I hope you haven't kept count of how many I'd owe you by now."

"I _never_ keep count," Raene replied, taking her turn to be dead serious. Before Cecilia walked outside, Raene pointed toward the ceiling as if there was a floating light bulb in the air next to her. "Before I forget: these ones don't have names. What will we write on the birth certificate?"

Memories of a past long gone flowing back to her memory, Cecilia tried not to think of her father, whose body had died a few years ago but whose mind had been lost centuries before due to instability. "Tiondel," she replied, smiling at the infant before she walked out. "His sister will be Sharimara."

Engrossed in her work of shifting labor, sorting certificates, collecting enough of the imperfect but temporarily necessary formula for Cecilia to use until she started to lactate again, and holding Tiondel, Raene waved Cecilia away, kissing Tiondel on the forehead as she prepared to release the newborn out of the compound's care.

Her family nearly complete, Cecilia shuffled back to the main hallway slowly, trying to calm herself and bury the lingering guilt away. There was no benefit to beating herself up: she'd raise her two youngest children to the best of her ability. Being a civilian and a retired sentinel, the cruelty of the world was no longer her concern: all she could do was carve out her own little place with her husband and family, and hope that the mark she left behind was a positive one.


	10. Year 39, part 2

**A/N: life birth warning again here. If you're squeamish about how that works, then you'll need to skip much of the end of this chapter here.**

Khujand sat on the edge of the bed, feeding Tiondel the flawed, unnatural formula as he held the boy. Even in light of his youngest son's ravenous appetite, he felt guilty for every drop of the artificial nourishment that he mixed. Nothing could compensate for the mother's milk, and it would only be a matter of time before Cecilia gave birth and her body was able to grant him - and Sharimara, whenever she arrived - that significant, natural sustenance.

His fake milk finished, Tiondel smacked his lips until he seemed to realize that there was nothing in his mouth anymore. Khujand lifted the boy slowly to burp him, simply amazed at how easily his son accepted the formula from him. When Cecilia had tried, Tiondel flatly refused and increased her already high level of stress. When he tried himself, it worked like a charm. How ironic that both of their adopted children were biologically night elves yet, even in the case of six day old Tiondel, were also much more attached to their jungle troll father.

Just as Tiondel started to drift off, Cecilia groaned again. Khujand knew that she hadn't been able to sleep, but her discomfort was so severe that she didn't want to talk. The sound was agonizing to hear: Cecilia was in a great deal of pain, but Khujand was powerless to help her, just as they'd been in the case of Anathil six years prior. For hours, the longest labor process his wife had been through had caused her to suffer with every contraction.

The pain wasn't too great; the spirits informed him of that. Discomfort, however, was her real problem, and was just as bad. No matter her laying position, she couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep through her earliest contractions, and once they'd increased in intensity, slumber and even relaxation were out of the question. After indirectly trying to figure out what he could do to make her more comfortable, he'd determined that the only option was for him to handle everything regarding their son, the hut and speaking to the volunteers. It was the least he could do for her, though he still felt like his efforts weren't sufficient whenever he heard her groan again.

Cecilia shifted the pillow beneath her baby bump, unable to find the exactly correct position to lay in. Even when she'd been pregnant with the twins, she'd always been able to find just the right position to lay in after two or three tries at most. He'd assisted her less than a dozen times during that pregnancy, and during her pregnancy with Navarion, she'd never needed any help at all. In this case, however, there really wasn't anything for him to do other than absorb any responsibilities in terms of speaking to people and feeding Tiondel so she could at least be left to suffer on her own. It was heart rending for him, but the whole time, he just kept trying to remind himself that he was already doing the most he could.

Eventually he fell asleep, guilty the entire time but no longer able to force himself awake. Tiondel had already nodded off, the Hearthglen family's youngest son's tiny, chubby hands clinging to Khujand's beard with his little pincer grip. When he was awoken by Cecilia's trembling fingers reaching for his hair to gently wake him up, he panicked at first worried that he was having a nightmare about Bomswandi or some other death loa.

"Not yet!" Khujand gurgled as he pulled himself back into consciousness, clutching Tiondel to his chest like a treasure. When he realized that it was his wife, her face tightened as if she was trying to suppress a grimace, he became worried. "Cici...what's goin' on?"

"I'm okay...I'm okay...it's just painful...this time," she panted, her voice still retaining a strange clarity and lucidity. "But I'm close...this labor is difficult...but I felt my cervix..."

Though she was too exhausted to continue, he understood what she meant, and his eyes widened. "Aw shit, Cici...ya want me to go get somebody? Can ya...can ya watch Del while I do?"

She shook her head. "Hold him to you...chest, then drape your shoulder. Drape him and your shoulder...the sun won't...bother him," she panted, very up front about her apprehension considering how much she hated to ask for help at any time other than her pregnancies.

"I'll go ask fast as I can without wakin' him," Khujand replied while taking a baby blanket and shielding his son's face from the impending sunlight.

"Thank...you...please hurry," she said while trying to pat him on the arm, though she was so tired by then that she just let her hand fall on him.

Outside, Khujand walked as carefully as possible, his eyes straining to adjust after having lived a mostly nocturnal lifestyle for his wife's sake for the past eight years. At that time, nobody was out and about in the traditional night elf birthing compound. Out of the hundred or so huts, nearly eighty were occupied, all of the fathers also night elves except for Khujand and a man who appeared to be half night elf and half dark troll but didn't want to talk about it. And since that guy was also nocturnal on both sides of his family, it meant that Khujand found nobody directly on the road he could turn to.

Toward the first bend, he turned a corner and spotted a lone sentinel newbie who'd been stuck with the dreaded day shift. The poor woman had resorted to playing solitaire in her hands while walking, her barbed crescent hanging from her belt as she looked pitifully bored. Khujand felt zero remorse when disturbing her for the sake of his own wife.

"Hey lady!" he called out to her, not giving himself enough time to think of a more polite way to address an armored officer of the law. She turned down indignantly and glared at him, knowing he was the outlander father who had permission to be there but not necessarily liking that fact. "My wife is in labor, and...she's in pain. Please, I can't leave her, but we need ta get help!"

Responding to the call of duty but wearing a sour facial expression the entire time, the woman put her lonely set of cards in her belt pouch. "Return to your assigned unit, outlander," she said despite the fact that he was clearly holding a baby in his hands, and that the baby had glowing silver eyes shining from beneath the blanket. "I'll send somebody." After her terse reply, she waved her hand for him to shoo and then promptly walked in the direction of the volunteers' quarters.

Not needing a second admonishment, Khujand hurried back to the hut, stepping carefully so as not to disturb Tiondel due to his brisk pace. The infant remained sleeping the entire time, much to the worried father and husband's relief. By the time he stepped inside of the hut, Cecilia had somehow managed to slide off the foot of the bed, pulling the comforter onto the floor with her as she braced her upper body in the edge and squatted as if using a hole in the ground latrine like trolls preferred.

"Cici, be careful!" he whispered as loudly as could still be considered a whisper. Within seconds he'd hurried to her side, clinging to Tiondel even after tossing the baby blanket off and squatting next to his wife.

Gritting her teeth, Cecilia kept her eyes closed as she visibly shook at the contractions. "Help?" she asked, using a single word for her high context sentence

"Help is on tha way, very soon," he replied while pulling her knee length maternity gown up to her hips for her. "How bad is tha pain?"

"Not critical," she replied tersely, using her rationalization rather than irritability as her defense mechanism that time, thankfully.

"Tha pressure?"

"Intense, but...not critical. I'm just...so...tired," she gasped, her arms shaking merely from the strain of laying on the bed in front of her.

"Do ya want me ta hold ya?"

"No...hold on to Del so he doesn't...wake up. Just...don't let me fall and roll...backwards."

At least she'd managed to string more words together in between each breath that time. "I'm right here, girl. I'm not gonna go anywhere."

He spent the next few minutes watching her contractions come rapidly, her groans dying out due to her lack of energy. When the sound of footsteps pattered up to the door, Cecilia gained a distant look in her eyes he'd only observed twice previously, right before she gave birth but after she seemed to disappear to a more feral, instinctual place.

"I'm here, I...oh," came the voice of Lurella, one of the most experienced volunteers. She also seemed bothered by Khujand's presence the most, and the way she spoke so casually prior to pausing in her tracks already upset him. "Sister Hearthglen, are you in any pain?"

Cecilia nodded toward Khujand, and he understood the signal. "She's in a bit of pain, and feels a bit of pressure, but mainly she's just tired," he replied on her behalf.

"Do you feel any internal pressure during the contractions?" Lurella asked Cecilia, ignoring what Khujand had said half a second before.

Shaking her head, Cecilia struggled to speak in between the now rapid contractions, coming only two minutes or so apart. "No...just...tire."

"Tire?" Lurella asked for clarification she didn't need. "Are you tired?"

Irate at how his wife was being bothered to push, breathe and talk all at the same time - when he was standing right there - Khujand tried to get through to the volunteer. Technically, he'd requested she came anyway, and he was wary of offending her. "I told ya, she's tired. That's why she doesn't wanna talk."

Never looking over toward him, Lurella approached Cecilia from the other side and knelt down to observe her. "Sister, are you in need of a healer here for support during the process?"

"I can heal," Khujand replied, and a bit defensively considering the fact that Lurella already knew that.

Finally making eye contact with him, she gave him a hard stare despite her congenial smile. "Sir, this is a serious medical issue; amateur interference puts the mother's wellbeing at risk," Lurella replied curtly.

Khujand bit down on his tongue, but the sound from his wife's throat worried him. Cecilia was exhausted, stressed out and beyond the point of talking, yet he could tell from the way that her fingers tried to clench the bedsheets that she was upset. During labor, it was the worst place for her to be, and he knew that her protectiveness might possibly cloud her judgment.

"He...heals," Cecilia panted, forcing herself to speak despite the toll that the lost breath took on her condition.

"Our goal is to look out for your interests," Lurella said while actually laying a hand on Cecilia's shoulder. That only caused her shoulders to twitch as if she was trying to stiffen them but lacked the power for holding her muscles taut. "Please, allow me to contact a proper healer-"

"Stop!" Cecilia replied, her voice weaker than she'd probably intended.

"Sister, if you'll just-"

"Ma'am!" Cecilia finally hissed. She stopped pushing, and Khujand feared that she'd likely set herself back a few minutes in terms of the birthing process, but he knew the lid on her temper had become unhinged, no matter how fatigued she felt. "Hold my son!" she hissed again, all in one breath.

Immediately, Khujand could feel his heart thump anxiously. They'd requested Lurella's help, and the woman was a volunteer. Although the compound lend its aid freely, she as an individual's wasn't obligated to assist them specifically, and if she was offended, she could always excuse herself to use the latrine and just never return to the hut.

Not wanting to give her the chance, Khujand thrust Tiondel's sleeping form into Lurella's hands. She bristled when the jungle troll's leather hide came into contact with her hands, but she hadn't expected the move and ended up cradling the babe before she'd even realized that Khujand had positioned himself behind Cecilia again.

"Do ya need me ta apply counterpressure?" he asked while already feeling her lower back.

"Hmmm," Cecilia relied, the pitch of her hum rising in confirmation.

He began pushing against her lower back as he'd done during her first pregnancy, and she continued to hum whenever his hands neared the right spot needed to relieve the extreme discomfort she felt internally. Lurella knelt frozen, unsure of what to do when her attempts to hold Tiondel out in front of her for Khujand to take the baby back went unanswered. Even if her ego had been bruised by her relegation to a sentient cradle, he knew that there was little she could do if he simply left her in that role unassisted.

"Sir, I need to run a checkup of your wife's condition!" Lurella protested, her voice falling on two pairs of deaf ears.

What happened next came so fast that it even seemed to surprise Cecilia. A high pitched grunt emitted from deep within her throat, soft and almost squeaky despite the depth from which Khujand could sense it originating. He could almost physically sense the shift as she struggled to push, choking on saliva and even whining a bit in between breaths as their last biological child proved difficult in bringing into the world. After a few more agonizing moments that caused him to fear for them both, he released her back and caught their new daughter before she landed on the comforter. A measure of afterbirth fell on to the fabric anyway, but Lurella thankfully slipped two towels beneath Cecilia with her feet while struggling to hold the unusually large full blooded night elf baby in her arms.

Khujand left Cecilia to birth the placenta on her own, knowing she'd have an easier time at that based on their previous experiences. At that moment, all he could focus on was wrapping Sharimara in a baby towel to keep her warm. As if the girl didn't even know that she'd been born, she didn't thrash or cry at all, remaining in a fetal position even as her lungs took their first breaths of fresh air. The umbilical cord continued to pulsate for a few minutes, and Khujand just held her silently as they all listened to Cecilia pant and complete the last contraction. Once he'd cut the cord, he accepted Tiondel back from Lurella, cradling both sleeping infants as the volunteer removed the soiled towels and placed fresh ones down for Cecilia to slump on.

"Thank you for accepting my help," Lurella said to Cecilia while sighing in defeat, surprisingly letting the slight against her ego go. She moved a pillow to the edge of the bed for the exhausted mother to lean her head against, and worked at moving Cecilia - who was nearly motionless by that point - into a stable sitting position. "Thankfully there are no tears, and bleeding is minimal, but I'm concerned about your blood sugar levels. Here, drink first."

Lurella assisted her in drinking, though Cecilia never opened her eyes the entire time. Slumping against the edge of the bed, she turned her head toward Khujand, unable to lift her arms. "Please...help...hold," she panted speech at least returning to her once she was seated and at rest.

Khujand and Lurella both worked the two infants into her arms, letting them lay against her chest. Since she was too tired to lift her arms, Khujand had to support both babies so they didn't move, allowing her skin on skin contact with Tiondel for the first time in hours and with Sharimara for the first time in the girl's five minute life. Short gasps began to emit from Cecilia's mouth, which gradually pulled into a frown.

Scooting closer to her, Khujand tried to shield her from view, much to Lurella's confusion. She pushed him back, not the least bit shy as her gasps turned into full blown sobs. They weren't loud enough to wake the babies, but the few tears sliding down her cheeks were clear enough for her husband to know what a rarity was occurring.

Throughout her entire life, Cecilia had cried only five times. She wasn't a crier, not even when her mother had been martyred during the War of the Shifting Sands; it simply wasn't in her nature. But as she sat there, finally raising her tired hands to clutch the last two of their six children, Cecilia Hearthglen cried.

Thoroughly uncomfortable, Lurella actually looked to Khujand expectantly, her standoffishness quicky melting away. He bore no answers, however, and only sat down next to his wife to put his arm around her.

Fter calming down, she opened her eyes a crack to look at him. "I'm done...this was my last time," she whispered. "I'll...I'll never know what it feels like to pass on life within my again."

Hugging her and their children close, he refrained from kissing her for Lurella's sake but but his chin on top of her head. "It isn't over, Cici...it's just started," he whispered back, rocking them all a bit as his wife panted and their midwife fidgeted.

Lurella didn't even move until more footsteps approached, and Raene knocked on the door. "Cici, may I come in?" Raene asked from the other side of the door, causing Khujand to grin at her usage of the nickname. "I rushed to get dressed as soon as I heard, but I was pulled into another stop along the way."

"Please...come on in," Cecilia replied, a sort of tired determination anchoring her to a consistent, if low, energy level.

Raene walked inside, her eyes lit up upon the sight of the new sister next to her brother. "It seems I missed Shari's entrance into the world," she sighed while kneeling down in front of them. "May I check, brother?" she asked...someone. When Lurella's eyes widened like saucers, Khujand realized that the compound founder meant _him_ , giving him the shock of his life, albeit a welcome one.

"I...wha? Oh...yeah, yeah! Of course!" He scooted backward and then stood up to give them some space, standing near the door. Lurella rose as well, her mouth fallen agape as her attention turned between him and Raene.

Her strength partially returned, Cecilia held both babies up until Raene started to assist her. As the woman knelt over them, a bright green light - similar to the natural magic of a cleansing spell - shone from their spot. Lurella's mouth fell open even wider, and Khujand felt positively confounded by the sudden smile on Cecilia's.

"That isn't...fel green...what's that?" he asked, perplexed.

"Natural green," Raene replied. "Like the wardens of our people - their talents lead to a non fel green, one from the natural magic they tap in to. Nobody knows why, and for a girl to be born with them like some sort of talent is even rarer than amber eyes in a boy. But...there's no doubt about it."

Cecilia finished Raene's sentence for her, her political leanings showing again and just shocking Lurella beyond the pale. "May she follow in lady Maiev Shadowsong's footsteps," she half panted and half chortled.

Though Raene didn't react openly, she took an ambiguous enough route that left Khujand in realization of her more opaque views on current events. "I'm sure she'll make you proud yet," the compound founder chortled.

As Raene continued to both run a general checkup on Cecilia herself and marvel at two more lives promising a strong future for their people, Khujand noticed Lurella's odd shift. Whether she'd been put in her place after her attempt to browbeat Khujand away had earned her a rebuke from the birthing mother, or she legitimately did regret the contempt she'd shown toward him, the volunteer appeared uneasy in her own skin. She just folded her hands over her dress and watched quietly, her lips pulled into a loose but straight line.

Even if she'd been less than polite to him at times across the previous six years, he wasn't a vengeful person. Not wanting a woman who'd devoted much of her own time to serving the needs of innocent newborns, Khujand put her complaints and occasional snarkiness out of his mind.

"Lurella," he said quietly, gaining a deer in the headlights expression as he spoke her name for the first time ever. "If I ever said or did anythin' that offended ya, then please know that I'm sorry. Ya'are a good person."

Her brow furrowed in confusion. Though she certainly wasn't touched by his words, the surprise that followed the confusion did seem to be a pleasant form. "Well...I...thanks," she replied, taken aback by the gesture. "Me too."

Knowing that he'd have plenty of time to hold his own children shortly, he watched Raene taking her turn for a few seconds before he leaned toward Lurella surreptitiously. "Please...I'd be honored if ya checked yaself. Just so ya'are familiar with them, since we're gonna be here a few more days before we can go."

As if she weren't listening that closely, Lurella didn't react right away. After blinking a few times and then twitching her ear, she looked up at him briefly as if she thought he might not be serious. When he didn't react, she seemed to figure out that he was being serious.

Cautiously, almost timidly, she walked back over to Cecilia, unsure of whether or not the tired mother was still irate or not. When she knelt down close, Cecilia noticed and gave her a good look over. Khujand worried that his wife might not be ready to extend the olive branch, but that worry was allayed when Cecilia's face softened and she motioned for Lurella to approach.

For a good while, Khujand just stood in the porch, watching the declining day roll by as Raene and Lurella took their turns holding the two sleeping infants. It was hard for Khujand to imagine that, after so many years together, they'd only just then begin to really raising the family they'd wanted. Six were enough; more than enough, even. And the two they had with them would need to brace themselves for their first flight...unfortunately, their first introduction to the family wouldn't be a wholly cheery one. He just hoped that, while they waited for Cecilia to recouperate, they didn't miss their chance for an introduction that would give the extended family a sense of closure.


	11. Year 39, part 3

**A/N: character death warning.**

Anxiety dampened Cecilia's mood during the chimaera ride back. As much as the massive creature had grown on her - it was the same one they'd rented when Issinia and Zengu had been born - she just couldn't bring herself to ignore the dark cloud looming over their return flight.

The literal sky, of course, was clear that night; the stars shone brightly, providing for excellent visibility as they traveled back to Astranaar from the birthing compound. A handful of people passed them as they neared the environs of the island city, their attention momentarily caught as they marveled at the ostensibly tourist family that had paid for a chimaera ride around Astranaar. Even Sharimara and Tiondel, despite being just five and twelve nights old respectively, seemed to enjoy the beginning of the flight (they'd fallen asleep due to the large creature's even wing beats thereafter).

Khujand was another matter. In addition to her husband's acrophobia and his paranoia about every single possible theoretical way their children could get hurt, his attempt to mask his anxiety only increased Cecilia's. Much of the half hour flight was spent with him stiff as a board with a nail in it as he held their babies with an iron grip that would likely leave his arms sore for days, and with her holding absolutely still so as not to cause him a panic attack in reaction to his belief that the slightest breeze would knock her off the chimaera. Already winded due to her still reduced energy level, Cecilia felt the ride stress her out at the worst possible time.

Memories floated through her mind about her place in life. Even if she was twelve thousand years old, so much was still familiar in her mind. Prior to her Sentinel military service during the Long Vigil, she'd merely been a civilian in Suramar; her whole family had been. Though she hadn't traveled to the resurfaced, corrupted version of her hometown in the Lost Isles - she refused to acknowledge that place as the true Suramar - she could still recall exactly how the city had been laid out. For two millennia she and her family had lived there; Unelia had been born shortly before the discovery of arcane magic manipulation and Cecilia just after. In her time, she witnessed the invention of aqueducts, paper, closed toed shoes, black smithery, non pictographic writing and sliced bread. How ironic, then, that she remembered little of the technological developments; the bits and pieces she retained were of her family.

Her parents had been upper middle class, though that included the overhwelming majority of the children of the stars at that time. Their villa had a decent enough view of the First Well of Eternity from the roof, which rose just half a story higher than the roofs of the other estates in front of theirs. It was from there that her uncle - the brother of her mother and thus the second oldest of the Swiftfoot clan - first told her about the stars. It had been a clear night, as clear as the current one, when he'd first told her that their people hadn't actually descended from the stars, but rather used them for guidance. Of course, the true origins of the night elves as shrunken and evolved dark trolls was considered unlawful information, so he hadn't burned the juvenile Cecilia with that information. No, he'd simply told her that the Well was the source of their longevity, which had stretched into millennia even before their immortality had begun.

He'd also told her about Elune, or at least official canon regarding the goddess back then. For someone as old as Cecilia, the fact that their scripture had been altered and changed was quite obvious, whether Darnssus considered such statements to be heresy or not. She knew that nature was rather deemphasized when their people had relied on the arcane, and that materialism and even atheism had thrived during the height of Queen Azshara's corrupted power trip. The latter had never settled in among any race of people on Azeroth or Outland since, and the former had nearly been written out of Kaldorei history books and almost entirely blamed on the Higborne. It was one of the biggest lies Cecilia knew of, but that lie wasn't what occupied her mind.

No...it was her uncle's words. Because even if so much about their religion had changed, one belief he'd taught her about had stayed the same.

 _When we die...the righteous rise into the Great Dark Beyond, shining brighter than our sun as stars that decorate the sky. They provide the light for out paths, they guide the wayfarers and sailors and travelers, they inspire the desperate and downtrodden to carry on. So when the time comes for each of us, the best thing to hope for is to be reunited with the loved ones we've lost, and to join them among the rest of those shining stars_.

A sense of melancholy hit Cecilia so hard that she didn't even notice the strain until Astranaar came into view, the forest ending around the moat that protected the city only to begin again due to all the ancients that had been grown into hollowed out dwellings. A pair of flight attendants at the hippogriff roost noticed them, waving flags to direct the oversized flying mount onto an extra strength perch as hippogriff leapt out of the two headed monster's way. Though the jolt of the chimaera sinking its weight onto the perch was light in relative terms, it was enough to cause both babies to shift around in Khujand's arms.

Safety prioritized, he readily handed the children over to one of the flight attendants before unbuckling the restraining harness that held both wife and husband to the chimaera's back. The second attendant focused on feeding entire live rabbits to the chimaera's two heads in order to placate the creature, though she noticed Cecilia descending from the harness with Khujand's help.

"Your brother in law is waiting for you," the second attendant said to her, obviously having expected a biracial couple flying on a two headed nature dragon.

Trying her best to retain her composure, Cecilia couldn't even look the other woman in the eye. "Thank so, sister," she replied demurely as Khujand took their children from the first flight attendant, who the helped her into the hollow interior of the hippogriff roost.

One of the few buildings shared by both night elves and tauren, the roost could hold either hippogriffs or wind riders. The cylindrical shape was perfectly fit for the ramp inside, though Cecilia still held on tight to the flight attendant as they descended, her balance not entirely regained due to her more gradual recovery. Khujand followed behind silently, their duffel bag strapped to his back as her husband pressed his lips so hard together that his breathing sounded strained.

Outside of the roost, Johan was waiting for them, her sister's human husband solemn yet subdued. Even the light in his eyes upon seeing Sharimara and Tiondel for the first time wasn't as beaming as she'd expected.

"Here, allow me, please," the human dressed in night elf furs said while taking both babies and allowing Khujand to rest his arms.

"Thank ya...yeah." He let his arms flop around a bit before paying the flight attendant a tip; no further fees were necessary since they had returned a flying mount that already belonged to the flight mistress in charge, and the attendant hurried on her way when the chimaera became ornery atop the roost.

Tired from the flight, tired from her stress, tired from the last and most difficult labor of her life, tired of everything, Cecilia leaned against her husband. "Johan...is he...?"

"Come now," her brother in law said, already walking ahead of them in the direction of the Swiftfoot residence. "He needs to see them..." When Cecilia and Khujand caught up to Johan, she distinctly thought she heard her brother in law murmur _it's all that's keeping him with us_. She blinked the thoughts away and closed her eyes as they walked, allowing her husband to lead despite her intense dislike of dependence on anybody.

Nobody said anything at the three of them walked. As large as the population of Astranaar had grown, those in her sister's neighborhood all knew them. Unelia was possibly the first night elf to have ever formally married outside of the race, and Johan ironically fit in with the community even better than some night elves from other regions, causing the couple to become respected if also a curiosity. Because of Cecilia's biannual visits with her Darkspear husband, the entire family was known as a bunch of polite little snowflakes and were generally well liked.

What Cecilia didn't like, however, was the crowd of well wishers who'd gathered in a thirty foot radius around the family home. Opening her eyes due to all of the commotion, she was met by numerous contrite and sympathetic gazes at a time when she would have preferred the entire family to turn invisible. Old colleagues of her uncle's from the Cenarion Circle as well as currently active former students had spontaneously conjured tree stumps to sit on, growing them out of the road despite local regulations. Retired sentinels that Cecilia and Unelia had once served with, in addition to active ones they'd both trained, had set up their silk tents in the spots most inconvenient for locals, creating even more foot traffic as people who hadn't heard the news stopped by. Heat rose in Cecilia's cheeks as she felt anger at them for invading her family's privacy and anger at herself for her inability to feel gratitude, stressing her out even more.

As if he could sense her distress via his voodoo, Khujand pulled her forward and put her hand on Johan's shoulder so she could continue toward the front door of the three story treehouse. "Ya two go on, I'm gonna talk ta tha people," he whispered as he slowed down and eventually stopped among the gathered crowd.

Before she could thank her husband, a group of locals descended upon him, unable to get a good look at her as he used his broad back to conceal them. The sound of all their questions blended in to one another as Johan led her the rest of the way inside, the tarp covering the front door already peeled away for them. Inside, Johan was faced with his own two children, surrounded by several women Cecilia and Unelia had lived alongside as neighbors for ten thousand years at their ancestral grove. Those women's own children tried to console Corrianna and Elindir the second as the two biracial children bawled their eyes out, and all eyes fell toward the door the moment the two approached.

Quicker on his feet than was normal for a human, Johan swiveled around, placed both babies in Cecilia's arms and ventured inside the first floor without a word more. It was a smooth transition and one they both knew was necessary as he absorbed all the questions of well wishers who'd been waiting, but it was physically taxing nonetheless.

With seconds to spare before somebody tried to step around Johan to force an inopportune hug on her, Cecilia heaved her shaking arms. Ignoring the lactic acid built up in every single muscle of her body, she actually grit her teeth was she ascended the ramp that wound around the household. Every joint popped due to built upon pressure from her stiff position during the flight, every piece of cartilage straining. Her edema hadn't entirely disappeared yet, but she she'd her flip flops due to the smooth and technically dangerous surface of the ramp, wrenching on her hamstrings as she drove herself up to the second floor. Breathing deeply as if she was on a long march through Winterspring, she ignored the burn in her lungs and the pulling muscle in her neck as she reached the balcony wrapping around the outside of the second floor, the closed tarp warning her to brace herself.

Heart pounding, ears tingling, blood rushing, Cecilia suddenly felt her swollen toes fill with lead. Wavering and holding her youngest children close, she took care not to shift too much lest she risk her arms giving out on her. The silence of the second floor caused the back of her neck to itch in anticipation (elves havw no hair on the backs of their necks to stand up on end), and she almost stopped before she entered the open doorway at the end of the hall. The sight of her sister, however, racked her mind with the oppressive duality of regret and obligation.

Unelia was seated on a chair just in view from the hallway, the shorter but older sister's walking stick laying against the wall next to her. She noticed Cecilia right away, and didn't even bother greeting her prior to standing up. Leaning on the wall and eschewing her stick entirely, Unelia reached for the nearest baby and took Sharimara into her arms, not realizing that the newborn was a little giantess and possibly the heaviest of all six Hearthglen children at birth. Ignoring the strain and walking inside without a word, Unelia lead Cecilia over to perhaps the most pivotal point of her post-Sundering life.

She and Unelia stopped, waiting in front of the bed as both sisters allowed the people outside and even all of existence aside from that room to exit from their minds. Leaning over the bed for a moment, Unelia finally cleared her throat and spoke.

"Uncle Eli...she's here. Both babies...they made it."

The covers on the bed rose and fell so subtly that even Cecilia's keen eyesight almost didn't detect the movement. An indigo beard decorated a mauve colored face, the formerly amber eyes uncovered by sunglasses and so faded that the iris, pupils and sclera were all easily discernible from one another. Never once faltering, his pale, cold lips still bore a smile, never giving up and pulling into a frown even in his last moments. Nothing was amiss aside from his mustache, which he normally shaved off but had since grown longer since he'd been bedridden.

Conjured from the wooden walls of the living structure, a vine grew up the side of the natural bed and split into two before leading inside both of Elindir the first's nostrils and - as Johan had explained - down into the fourteen thousand year old druid's lungs. Extra oxygen of the purest type was pumped into his alleles by those leafy tendrils, supporting his body's respiration even after he'd lost the ability to breathe on his own. A second green vine grew out of the bed itself, similarly thin and soft save a single thorn that had opened a vein in the crook of his arm and two leaves which wrapped around to apply pressure to the tiny cut. The vine had burrowed into the vein and was pumping naturally channeled glucose into his system, the only means of nourishing him after his digestive tract had failed.

Slowly, those two eyelids opened just a little bit wider. His sight lost to him years ago, he still held the habit of moving his eyes around as if looking for the source of sound, revealing the yellow irises surrounded by the white sclera. His eyelids closed again soon thereafter, as if his consciousness was only halfway in the world of the living. Cecilia fought back a sob as she carefully lowered Tiondel down onto her uncle's chest, accepting Sharimara from her sister afterward. The two of them supported both infants so they didn't roll off, barely even disturbing them in the process.

Unelia folded their uncle's free arm over both infants. "These are the youngest, uncle...the newest members of the family."

For a good few seconds he didn't respond, and Cecilia clenched her teeth together to prevent the gasps of air from escaping her mouth. Just as she started to feel light headed, those two eyelids flicked open again, not quite glazed over as his arm tightened around the two children ever so slightly.

Both infants stirred, unable to do much other than fuss and bob their heads around. Nonetheless they made their presence known, and a smile that had never been extinguished for fourteen millennia lit up once more. Sharimara and Tiondel settled down, as if they could sense that they were in caring hands, their little backs rising and falling as they breathed more powerfully than their great uncle.

The smile remained plastered to his face even after the end. Both of his neices waited, knowing that he needed to see. In his last moments, what had kept him from checking out after his time had come to pass was a desire that even his body couldn't deny to his soul. Like a large number of night elves born before immortality had even started, Elindir Swiftfoot the first finally felt his old age catch up to him, passing just as people of all races did. His promise to watch over his sister's progeny fulfilled, he made his exit from the world in the happiest way possible, cradling the proof that a new generation would live on, and that life would continue safely in his absence.


	12. Year 51

**A/N: this takes place in the year 51 - just under two decades from the current game expansions. Keep in mind that Azeroth will most assuredly be a different place.**

The breeze had died down at the Mor'shan Ramparts that day, the border between the Barrens and Ashenvale quiet and full of still air. Life, however, was nothing but still. After all, the border crossing was arguably one of the busiest on Azeroth.

Traders from all over the world had set up shop - technically from all over the universe due to the single transmogrification workshop run by an ethereal. Possibly the most modern border crossing on Azeroth, the veritable double sided city had become a major economic center despite existing on a two way road with no intersections, water access or natural resources. Such was the testament to the will of all peoples to reach out and connect, and commune, no matter what the universe threw at them.

It had been nary half a decade since the night elves had pulled out of the Alliance, leaving the Sentinels as an independent faction again as they had been during the Third War (or, as many of them pointed out, for 99.99% of their people's history). The move had partially been a response to the Forsaken dropping out of the Horde, once again returning the world to the state of four main factions that had existed for a few years after the First Battle of Mount Hyjal. No longer dependent on consultations with a factional capitol on another continent, they'd negotiated more aggressively with the Horde for a pullout of all non Kaldorei settlements north of Azshara's southern peninsula. Ironically, their more assertive posture had led to more blunt yet honest relations with Orgrimmar, thus making the Mor'shan border crossing possible. Orcish grunts chatted politely across the barrier with night elven crescent wielders, not so much friendly as respectfully distant.

Unless, of course, there was money to be made; in that case, the only one referred to as an enemy was the person cheating business partners.

Ever one to nitpick about details, the family's undead friend Valmar tried to negotiate for a better price with the gnomish photographer. The tiny man had set up a photo booth for travelers, conveniently located near the two hostels that the combined guests of the Hearthglen, Swiftfoot and Bowleaf families had booked solid alongside their close friends. It was so rare that everybody could come together for an entire weekend vacation, and as the Forsaken swordsman tried to push for an even cheaper rate for mass production of group photos, Khujand felt himself relent.

"Valmar, we might not have everybody tagether like this for another few years," he whispered to his non living friend. "I'm gonna pay tha difference."

Covered head to toe in order to conceal the decay of his skin, Valmar was dressed quite lavishly from the expensive furs down to the custom made aluminum mask of an unblemished face. His irritation, however, was palpable.

"This isn't about money! Fifty gold for fifty copies of the photos - not each - is highway robbery!"

Unrepentant to the bitter end, the balding gnome jumped up and down on his pedestal at the photo booth he'd set up under a tent next to the Gold Road. "Fifty one!" the little man squeaked.

Valmar did a double take, the pale blue glow of his eyes flickering behind the mask shaped like a calm, relaxed face. "What! You're trying to _increase_ the price?" the deadman asked incredulously. "Forty five or we're walking!"

"Forty three!" the gnome screeched, refusing to be outdone in terms of melodrama.

"Huh?" Khujand asked just as he was about to leave.

"He said forty three! You said forty three, taken!" Valmar cried out while literally flinging Steamwheedle banknotes at the tiny man.

Speedier than a hare, the gnome jumped down from his pedestal and started snatching up banknotes without even counting them. "Money money money!" he cheered in such an over the top matter that Khujand couldn't help but laugh. When the gnomish photographer noticed that Valmar had started rearranging the fake potted palm trees, he threw a fit. "No! No! Only I arrange the rements!"

"You're too small to move anything other than your camera, just let me speed up the setup process!"

"No! No! No!"

Leaving the two of them to argue and praying that Valmar didn't punt the man across the border, Khujand walked away to where his wife was waiting on the grassy patch next to the photo tent. Standing next to her was a biracial couple with nearly opposite makeup. Anjula, a dark troll of the Shadowtooth tribe, chatted with Cecilia about the flight routes they'd all needed to take in order to rendezvous at one location. Her night elven husband, Melas Bowleaf, stepped forward when he noticed Khujand approach. After decades of friendship due to similarly unconventional relationships at the time, the two couples were now business partners: Cecilia and Khujand grew their herbs on the only tillable land overlooking Ratchet, and Anjula and Melas handled distribution and marketing in northern Kalimdor. Neither relationship considered shocking anymore given the quiet peace that had settled in over the world, the families had grown quite close.

"Is everything ready?" Melas asked in Zandali, his wife having long ago taught him the language.

"In a minute, I think," Khujand replied as Valmar and the photographer started to argue about whether or not the photo would require a fake painted backdrop.

Ignoring the tense discussion, Melas looked back toward the scattered groups of their friends and family. "Will you round everybody up, or shall I?" he asked.

"I got it this time; but if they all saw ya ready in front of tha camera, they might line up."

"Agreed. I'll see you in a minute or so," Melas replied while walking over toward the camera. Left alone, Khujand noticed their wives caught up in another one of their long discussions about the olden days, and left them to it; he never liked to rush his wife if he could avoid it, even though she wouldn't mind anyway.

Spotting a young man with Melas' hair and Anjula's skin chatting up somebody out of view by a stray Ashenvale greenwood growing south of the border, Khujand approached. Tan'jin, the son of Anjula and Melas, looked as mixed as his ancestry was, his race ambiguous and indiscernible. When the novice druid noticed Khujand approaching, he stiffened up as if he'd been caught doing something wrong, revealing the shock of jade colored hair next to him.

Unrepentant and unassuming as always, Anathil stepped forward, trying to pull the nervous young man with her. The fel runes tattooed on the voodoo priestess' skin sparkled, clashing with the adopted daughter's purely night elven features. "Daddy, can I stand next to Tanny in the photo?" she asked in fluent Zandali, batting her jade eyelashes up at the old Darkspear.

His heart warmed, Khujand once again found it impossible to tell his eldest child 'no.' "Ah...well, ask ya mama, Thanil," he chuckled, passing down the buck. "Have ya seen ya siblin's?"

Anathil shook her head, but Tan'jin cautiously nodded and pointed in another direction. "They're playing Hearthstone over there," he said, indicating the group of teenagers and one certain grown up draenei.

"Thanks...why donshyu both go and line up with ha daddy, Tan'jin," Khujand replied while pointing toward Melas. Valmar and the gnome had resorted to staring each other down, decreasing the amount of noise from that direction.

"Sure, mister Hearthglen," Tan'jin replied, leading Anathil away and shyly trying to put his arm around her shoulder before chick ending out.

Chuckling to himself about the pair, Khujand soon found himself faced with more of the teenagers sprawled out in the grass, inexplicably trading the cards they'd just bought as if they weren't all just pictures printed on paper. Of the five youths, it was Issinia, her silver eyes as bright as ever even during broad daylight, who rose first.

"Ishnu alah, father," she said in her over practiced Darnassian, her decidedly trollish features creating a similarly strong contrast to that of her older sister. She bowed formally, the aspiring priestess of the moon maintaining a respectful distance between herself and an authority figure.

"Ishnu dal dieb," he chuckled in reply, accepting another bow as her twin brother stood up.

"Greetings, father," Zengu said, the even more mixed looking boy displaying much the same behavior.

Elindir II, Zengu and Tan'jin's classmate at a summer academy run by the Cenarion Circle, rose up as well, looking rather displeased that their card trading had been interrupted but polite toward his uncle nonetheless. "Greetings, uncle Khuj."

"Ta ya, too, Eli-"

"To me, too!" Corrianna chirped while springing up. The oldest of their generation, she could also be the most energetic when she was in the right mood.

"Of course, Corra-"

"Mister Hearthglen," came an unnaturally echoing voice followed by a nod. Rising up in her coils, Nephentha, a real, live naga, reared up to greet him. Another inhabitant of Ratchet, Nephentha's parents Serpentra and Ghorlash had been friends of the family's for decades as well, though they were the only naga family he knew of that resided among other races.

"Ta ya too, Nepha," Khujand chortled as all the greetings were sent his way in a matter of seconds. Once the clique of mostly traditional and conservative teenagers were at attention, he did his best to herd them toward the photo booth. "Thanil and Tan'jin are over with his father and mister Valmar. Could ya to over and get ready? We wanna make sure we get tha pics before another group of customers comes along."

"Yes, mister Hearthglen," the clique of rule followers all replied unanimously, collecting their cards and hurrying over toward the tent. Once they'd moved, Khujand was able to spy the second clique of teenagers, standing near where the other group had been but without having socialized with them. When the five other teenagers noticed his approach, they felt quiet.

"Hey, dad," Navarion said nervously, standing in the middle as if he was the ringleader of the five. Which was probably the case.

Dravynea, the daughter of their draenei neighbors Yaromira and Kiul, adjusted her hi neon sunglasses. "Hey, du...uh...I mean, sir," she stammered, causing Khujand to grow suspicious considering the suspension she'd incurred at school due to having been caught with marijuana. Which he feared Navarion had given to her, but Khujand preferred to keep his head buried in the sand.

"Hey, kids-"

"Hi, dad," Tiondel said, his Common (which this clique spoke almost exclusively) accented almost like a jungle troll's despite his Kaldorei blood.

"Hearthglen," said Nathanial, the very human son of the family's worgen neighbors, Elizra and Tyron. Held under the thumb of his strict parents, Nathanial had little room to breathe and tended to hang out with this group as his only outlet for his teenage rebelliousness.

Sharimara, silent and watching as always, nodded to her father. Her habit usually caused her siblings to balk, but the two of them had an understanding such that he never took offense. "Kids, can ya go over ta where mister Bowleaf is standin'? It's time for tha group photo," he said, noticing that the draenei and worgen couples had both found their way over to the camera already.

Bristling at the word 'kids,' Navarion raised a finger for the others to follow him anyway. "See you there, dad," he replied tersely, trying to move away as quickly as possible. Had he been trying to hide a lit cigarette behind his back, Khujand wouldn't have been surprised, but thankfully he wasn't and no thrashings would need to be dealt that day.

As more people continued to disperse, the high fur of Tyron and scales of Ghorlash poking up in the back rows of people lining up, Khujand found himself set upon by prancing hooves and glowing goggles.

"Look at you, being mister chaperone for everybody," came the voice of Irien, both his and Cecilia's best friend and longtime housemate. Her day vision goggles concealed her silver eyes and also granted her accurate vision up to ten miles away, depending on how much power the solar charged goblin technology held at any given time.

"Chaperonings!" chirped Anushka as she almost tripped on a stone in the grass.

"I was wonderin' where ya were," Khujand told the irreverent draenei as she regained her balance and continued on her way toward the tent.

Irien pouted. "So what am I, chopped-"

"Pepperonings!"

Laughing as he ushered her over toward the tent like one of the teenagers, earning himself a swift kick to the behind in the process, Khujand answered honestly. "I knew ya wouldn't be that far from tha soda jerk," he replied while pointing toward a random hozen drink vendor with his thumb.

Shutting her mouth and suppressing a carbonation induced burp, Irien defiantly pressed her lips into a line. After a staring contest she couldn't even win through her goggles, she relented. "No!" she replied, denial defining her features.

Hugging her the way he did Anathil despite the fact that Irien was over a thousand years old, Khujand tried to pull her along with him. "Come on, then, miss mineral water. We need ta get everybody tagether before anyone gets bored and wanders off."

She flicked his hand off of her shoulder. "Nobody's wandering away when I'm around," she replied, striding forward to catch two other, much shorter, friends of theirs.

Still dressed in their Steamwheedle uniforms, two small figures set their suitcases down near the tent, congregating with Anushka before Irien interrupted them. Vegnus, a mountain dwarf who was skinny by his people's standards and had a rather short beard, waved at Khujand. "Don't worry, the party has arrived!" the cartel contractor chuckled as he leaned against one of the tent poles.

Standing next to him on the right was Xyran, a long serving cartel bruiser, though 'long' for them meant more than five years without falling victim to random workshop explosions during their patrols. Silent as Sharimara had been, the short man with a large head who regularly took down ogres and drakonids for brawling saluted, his left eye always halfway closed for some reason. On the left was Meatball, everybody's favorite gnoll brawler, and while he was by no means silent, the short, furry man didn't appear to be forming actual words as he cackled at everything moving.

"I'm gonna come right after ya guys," Khujand said while searching for the final members of their big family and friend photo.

"Don't go wandering too far away, now!" Vegnus shouted after him as he and Xyran tried not to be stepped on by Anushka.

"I'm not-"

"Don't go getting attacked by any diseased botanical monsters!" Irien called, thumbing her nose at him to add to the zinger about a certain event that tended to go unmentioned to anyone other than select persons.

Stopping himself from responding for fear of the sort of retorts Irien was capable of, Khujand resigned himself to pretending that he hadn't heard her just as he stumbled upon the last few people he'd been searching for.

Arranged in a row were Anjula, Unelia and Johan. The dark troll's naturally charcoal grey hair matched the streaks that Khujand and Johan both had begun to find on their own heads, the ages of the two men being roughly the same. Unelia had retained the indigo hair that her and Cecilia's mother had sported, but leaned more heavily on her staff than previously due to an old injury. Having already greeted Khujand a few minutes prior, the trio continued to walk, even as they waved to him all over again.

"Come on now, don't be late," Johan said in a rare show of light humor from the usually serious human.

"I'm on my way. We're just waitin' for one more person."

The three of them joined the others in a mass of skin, fur and scales, all of the, shifting around as they attempted to discover the perfect position for a photo that would include twenty five people of rather diverse body types. Xyran inexplicably insisted on standing in the back row between Tyron and Ghorlash despite being one eighth the naga male's size, and Anushka had apparently deigned it appropriate to stand smack dab in the middle, right in front of everybody else. Vegnus caused everyone to double over in laughter as he unbuttoned his shirt halfway and laid on his side at everybody's feet, like he was posing for the type of magazine that Dravynea probably read. For reasons the world may never know, Irien refused to remove her day vision goggles...and what did Nathan have on his head?

While listening to Valmar continue to argue with the photographer, Khujand was surprised by the measured, nimble footsteps of the last person he'd been looking for.

"We've assembled quite a little clan, haven't we?"

At some point Cecilia had slipped away after finishing her conversation with Anjula, sneaking up behind her husband as he'd been trying to corral everyone for a group picture they'd probably never have the opportunity for again. Folding her arms in front of her as she watched Serpentra coerce Valmar back over to the group, Cecilia smiled warmly. Though it was subtle as most of her expressions were, there was a depth to it that Khujand knew could only be noticed by him.

A mushy feeling overtook him. "I never woulda thought that, after stumblin' on ta alternate Draenor in a jungle, we were gonna end up creatin' a community like this," he whispered to her.

Leaning against his arm as the photographer spent forever setting up his high tech equipment, Cecilia hummed in affirmation. "I've done enough 'we made it' monologues to last us a few lifetimes," she replied, speaking slowly in a very relaxed tone. "So suffice to say that we've come a long way and done well for ourselves."

"And for all of them," he added, gazing upon the worgen, naga, elves, draenei and all assortments of people who wouldn't possibly know each other were it not for the two of them bringing the diverse group together.

Their friends, their family, the six children they were raising, all of them looked so happy. Even Valmar relaxed once the photographer had started to fire up his machine, spurring Cecilia and Khujand to join their friends, squeezing in to spots appropriate for their sizes. This was their community, their people; they'd built that house, and after so much time spent struggling, they were going to enjoy it.

"Okay, okay, okay," squeaked the gnomish photographer in a funny accent. "Three, two, one, and goat cheese!"

The camera flashed, snapping a photo of twenty five shiny, happy people mostly holding hands, one tent with a fake painted background of cartoon cacti in a desert, and one cantankerous gnome in a pointy hat photobombing the lower left hand corner of the picture.

 **A/N: and so ends the final appearance of Cecilia and Khujand as the main characters in a story. There are no comebacks after a fake retirement - this is it for them. I might write some oneshot drabble from various characters here where Cecilia and Khujand are the focus, but not from their perspectives. For all intents and purposes, they're starting a well earned retirement as of now.**

 **So, what does that mean for the continuum they're set in?**

 **It will continue for a few more years. The stories have already been written and are saved on my cloud and external hard drive - per the posting schedule I have on Deviant Art, there's enough material for a few years if I post one chapter a week of two stories at once. Stories about their children.**

 **Of course, they want quiet civilian lives for their kids, but we all know that's not happening. Six diverse kids with such clashing personalities and magical skills are bound to travel the world seeking adventure like their parents did - so in that sense, the continuum of the Hearthglen family will continue, and Cecilia and Khujand will still be around in supporting roles.**

 **So relax. I'm not writing a goodbye speech or any sort of retrospective of the continuum, because it hasn't ended yet. For those who don't intend to read on, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for reading a more tender story. For those who do intend on reading more, welcome aboard. For longtime readers and for muses such as Zarabethe, Dreamer, bohmz and the usual suspects who are more than I can name, I hope I haven't made you sick of the family yet.**

 **May anyone who sees this live long and prosper.**


End file.
